Escalante Archives - Yeti Hikes

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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