Canyonlands Archives - Yeti Hikes

Hayduke Trail Day 10

Yeti — Tue, 12 Oct 2021 01:18:04 +0000

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.

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Hayduke Trail Day 9

Yeti — Mon, 11 Oct 2021 01:18:04 +0000

Start: Salt Creek Backcountry Campsite 4

Finish: Sweet Alice “Road”

Daily Mileage: 25.2

Trip Mileage: 150.1

Elevation gain/loss: 4234/1029ft

I slept fitfully last night but got up at the usual time to get into the Anasazi ruins. The trail starts off as it had been so far, overgrown and brushy, but around where the ruins started it really opened up.

I went from ruin to ruin, taking each in. It’s cool to see history as part of a hike and not just the nature and scenery. This valley is very green compared to the terrain I have already passed through. So it’s unsurprising the Anasazi found and farmed it. They didn’t live here year-round though, they stayed in nearby and dry Beef Basin, though it is unknown why they didn’t live in one place year-round. I had an option to go to Beef Basin to see the ruins there as well, but I decided on an alternate route.

Near the end of the valley there was a really big spring gushing water. This was the first flowing good clear water I’ve seen on this trip (besides the Colorado River), so I obviously had to get some of it. I loaded up with 7 liters because I didn’t think I would see any for the rest of the day and early tomorrow. It was definitely noticeable when I put my pack back on with that much water weight. I also have the extra weight of the bear can. I collected the water at about 6,000 ft and ended up camping at 8,500 ft so I had to carry it up quite a ways.

In Salt Creek I did see both mountain lion and bear prints. I have seen a lot of medium-sized cat prints but I’m not sure what those are.

Leaving the Salt Creek area, the official trail goes up to Cathedral Butte where there is trailhead. I followed an alternate route I found on the internet to go the opposite direction and get me back towards where I was heading with less roadwalking. I had several different map sources available and one source showed this as actual trail, another source showed it as a 4×4 track and other sources didn’t show anything there at all. I wasn’t really sure what to expect for this route.

I started up a wash and briefly went away from the wash where I verified there was no supposed track or trail that some of the maps suggested. So, I followed the wash up as far as I could. I saw a couple cairns and a couple very old footprints along the way, but other than that, there wasn’t much sign of human passing this way. So, I was left to my own devices to get up the wash. I stuck to the wash, just judging which way looked easiest when it split a couple times. I ended up going up the final ascent through a steeper area with very big boulders. A couple of these were tough to get around and I had to take my pack off and squeeze under one and have big steps up for the other ones. Difficult with so much water. I made it up, though I’m sure it didn’t look pretty. I was caught up in the scrambling and wanted to get it over with, so I didn’t stop to get any pictures. There is no possible way there was ever a road here, so my maps were incorrect.

On top it was some cross-country, and then I rejoined another wash going down the opposite way. I followed this down and then picked up another wash going up. These weren’t as difficult as the first wash but they did have some challenges and I had to divert around obstacles a couple times. I eventually got to another marked 4×4 track. This was long disused, and at times I had to stare at the ground to trace out where it went. It’s always easier to follow a somewhat established route than just go off by myself through the desert. I followed this track until I joined a forest service road.

At the forest service road, I could go right or left. I’ve actually been debating this decision for about a month, and most of today aside from when I was exploring the ruins. I got input from several people before the trip and then a couple people I talked to at The Needles who had been in the area. I wanted to ultimately take the path which was the most scenic, which I couldn’t get good info on since they are both seldom travelled routes. It came down to either spending a lot more time in Dark Canyon or going the normal Hayduke route through terrain likely only travelled by Haydukers through some challenging but scenic terrain. Both routes had about the same amount of roadwalking to get to the start of them, and I decided on the spot to go to Dark Canyon since one of my friends spoke highly of it as a smaller Grand Canyon. This means that I will be skipping Beef Basin, Fable Valley and that area.

So, then it was down to the grind. I had about 13 miles of forest service roads to get to a trailhead where I could hit the trail down into Dark Valley. Not the most exciting thing in the world, but as I climbed in elevation, trees did start to appear. Also, as I started to climb, the leaves on the deciduous trees were changing color or falling as I gained elevation. The same trees weren’t changing yet at lower elevations.

I climbed and climbed and eventually got to about 8,500 feet. I had thought about going a few miles further today to sleep at a viewpoint over Dark Canyon, but it was going to get me to camp late, and I just didn’t want to push myself that hard so early in the trip. I ended up setting up in a field on top of a plateau. It’s chilly up here, and I’m keeping my sensitive items close to me tonight because I expect to see some frost in the morning.

I had more struggles with the Sterno today. I couldn’t even get it to stay lit, so I had slightly warmed water that I soaked my noodles in for a while, but they were still crunchy when I gave up letting them rehydrate. Far from the best camp dinner I’ve ever had, but it is what it is. All buttoned up in my tent and sleeping bag, ready for the cool of the night.

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Hayduke Trail Day 8

Yeti — Sun, 10 Oct 2021 01:18:04 +0000

Start: Needles Outpost Campground

Finish: Salt Creek Backcountry Campsite 4

Daily Mileage: 19.2

Trip Mileage: 124.9

Elevation gain/loss: 1375/833ft

Up early to maximize my hiking time in the fall daylight. I made my last use of the normal amenities like flowing water and Wi-Fi to check the weather before I quickly headed out. I had mapped out a brief cross-country route to get to where I was going to start the official National Park trail but conveniently found that my route almost directly overlayed an old road. Therefore, it was very easy going. I even found some sort of old electrical substation in the middle of nowhere, apparently destitute for years.

The first two days of this next section I will be hiking down the Salt Creek Trail which is famous for its Anasazi ruins. However, it turned out that on the first day there wasn’t too much since most of the ruins are further south.

The trail started down in wash where it was one with a 4×4 track for a while, though the track was gated. The trail shortly got into Salt Creek Canyon and 4x4s were not allowed to go further. The first thing I found in the canyon was an arch that you could walk through to get to the other side of the ridge. There was a string of Indian pictographs next to the arch which were the first pictographs I’d seen this trip. There’s supposed to be a lot of these out here in general, and I had waypoints for a few of them, but had not been able to find any yet on this hike. Salt Creek is one of the few water sources in the area (though not flowing now), and was used to farm the land in ancient times.

After taking in the arch in the pictographs, I continued down the wash and around a bend and saw another arch. I went up to that one as well and saw a couple more very faded pictographs. I went through that arch and then realized it was the same arch I had just visited! I didn’t realize I had just done a 180 degree turn in the wash, and could have just walked through the arch as a short cut. Oh well, no harm done, I just felt silly.

The rock was pretty varied through Salt Creek Canyon, but there is a lot of deep red with a band of bright white. I really like the combination of the two strikingly different colors side by side, separated by a discrete line. What happened to dramatically change the composition of the rock so quickly? I took lots of pictures of this throughout the day and just generally enjoyed this section of mostly actual trail.

I was doing pretty good on time, so I did a side trail out and back to Angel Arch, 1.7 miles each way. A pretty big detour for a long-distance backpacker! The National Park made me take a bear can to do this trail so I did leave the can at the trail junction trail so I didn’t have to drag the can plus five days of food all the way up and back. Might as well take advantage of having the bear can. It was a well worthwhile detour. Angel Arch was pretty impressive; it was high up and very large, and had a unique right pillar which resembled an angel with wings. There is also a formation there called The Molar which looks strikingly like a tooth.

II was going to stay up there and take a break for a bit longer, but some darker clouds started to roll in so I hiked back to rejoin my trail.

I got back to the main trail in short order and started to think about grabbing some water since it wasn’t too far to my camp. I passed a couple puddles which didn’t look that great, but I had been seeing a lot of water in this section so I figured I would pass those up and get some water closer to camp. I kept looking in the stream and it kept being bone dry and I made it all the way to camp without seeing any water! I pondered what to do now. There was a marked ruin slightly further down the trail and I thought that maybe there was a ruin because there was good water there. So, I went to the ruin and it was dry. I decided that I had no idea how far forward I would have to go to find water and that I should probably just turn around and go back to where I knew I saw water. I had to stay in the designated campsite to meet my permit. So, I headed back past my campsite again and back another two miles before I came to the water that I last saw.

I was filling up with water when dark clouds started to roll in once again. I got the minimum amount of water I needed plus an extra liter of unfiltered water in my reservoir and booked it back to camp. In this whole scramble to find water, I had just left my pack out at camp when I dashed off to find water. If it started raining it wouldn’t be good because it wasn’t waterproofed today. I really didn’t think through getting this water and made a few bad decisions today. I made it to camp without any rain and 2 hours after I first arrived. Perhaps my biggest set of mistakes on this trip so far, but I did manage to recover, thankfully with no real negative impacts.

My next adventure was using the Sterno for the first time to try to boil water. All I had was a can of Sterno and my pot, so I set the pot on top of a couple of rocks to prop it above the fire of the Sterno. The can of Sterno looked about 10 years old and went out several times without there even being any wind. I tried different size rocks in different setups and in about an hour I was left with some lukewarm water. Not ideal at all! I took what I had and just let my noodles soak for longer and they came out good enough in the end.

I was having a pretty good day enjoying the scenery until I got to camp and had my struggles with water and the Sterno. I have learned my lesson on being more conservative with water out here in the desert, and I resolved to think a lot harder when passing up sources in the future. I knew the Sterno wasn’t going to be ideal and it worked well enough. I will just have to hit the reset button with sleep tonight and then hopefully start tomorrow off better.

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Hayduke Trail Day 7

Yeti — Sat, 09 Oct 2021 01:18:04 +0000

Start: The Loop

Finish: Needles Outpost Campground

Daily Mileage: 6.7

Trip Mileage: 105.7

Elevation gain/loss: 308/280ft

I had to set myself up to nero (nearly a zero-mile hiking day) today, and thought I only had eight or nine miles left to go before I hit the Needles Visitor Center for Canyonlands National Park. I was up with my pack on as soon as it was light enough to see. I immediately hit a 4×4 track which would take me to the visitor center with a couple turns. I cruised down the 4×4 track with the notion of “town” in my head, not really looking around too much. It turns out that I was only about 4 miles from the visitor center and it was a very quick morning hike. Right as I got to the visitor center it started sprinkle, perfect timing!

I got my backcountry permit for the next day and pumped the ranger for some general trail info around the area since she did a lot of backcountry backpacking. I also got some of my lingering questions answered about a couple things I’d seen in the desert so far like the alkaline water and how to minimize damage the cryptobiotic soil which I have to occasionally cross. Then I hung out at the visitor center for a little bit to use their Wi-Fi for the first time in 5 days until it died. Then I headed over to The Needles Outpost which had my resupply package and where I would spend the day and night.

I got to The Needles Outpost really early and got my campsite and package and set myself up to sit around all day and not do too much. I’ve been on the trail for a week so I can take a nero!

I had checked with the store before I started my trip and they said they had denatured alcohol for my camp stove. When I got there, they said they had sold out, unfortunately. They didn’t really have any other options that would work in my stove. The store owner had one ancient looking can of Sterno which I thought could work good enough for my needs. Not ideal but you just have to go with the flow and take it as it comes when you’re thru-hiking.

I caught up on my internet, talked to some people, and read for most of the day. Since I didn’t have stove fuel and wasn’t sure how long the Sterno would last, I resorted to buying a couple cans of food from the camp store to eat cold for my dinner. Not the usual town stop hiker fare!

I got a refreshing 5-minute shower, the first one in 5 days after hiking in the heat which is great. However, there was no laundry so my clothes are still a shade of red / brown. And they probably still smell.

That’s about it for today, just a relaxing rest day. It did end up sprinkling about half the day so it was not a bad day to have off.

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