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Hayduke Trail Day 35

Yeti — Sat, 06 Nov 2021 01:18:04 +0000

Start: Paria Canyon between Second and Third Crack

Finish: Cow Tank on Vermillion Cliffs

Daily Mileage: 18.0

Trip Mileage: 617.2

Elevation gain/loss: 3270/1367ft

It was one of the warmer nights that I’ve had out here last night. I didn’t even have my hat on for the whole night, which is a first since very early on the trip. Also, my socks and insoles dried overnight, though my shoes were still damp. I guess an advantage of the dry desert air. That never would have dried in other places I frequent overnight.

I put my feet into my dry socks and dry-ish shoes and proceeded to immediately cross the Paria River and get them wet again. At least they weren’t wet when I put my feet in them, which is the hard part.

Where I was, the Paria River did a bunch of tight switchbacks. Early on, I found myself looking around and appreciating the canyon a lot more than I was late in the day yesterday, which validates my decision to stop a little bit early since I wasn’t enjoying it too much being tired. The cliff walls were sheer, and as I progressed into the canyon, they got taller and taller. There were some big alcoves like in some other canyons I have seen, and in general, just great rock and views along with a relatively easy “trail”.

I bumped into another backpacker a couple of times in the morning, and when I saw her filling her Platypuses at a spring, I asked if she had trouble with her caps leaking. I replaced one bladder in Kanab due to a leaking cap, but since then, another bladder has started leaking from the cap as well. These are brand new bladders, just used a few times each, and I have no idea why they started leaking so quickly, not due to a puncture. It also really hampers my water capacity since they’re 2.5 liters each. Well, the backpacker had a spare cap which I tried, but unfortunately, it still leaked past her cap so I guess it’s something on my bladder. Oh well, I’ll just have to deal with it.

The Paria changed as I went downstream. The river went through ledges like Dark Canyon earlier on the trail, and became a lot more fun and scenic to traverse. There were also a lot more rock formations with the river cutting closer to the rock.

As I got further downstream, the walls got enormous and very tall. That worried me a little bit since I knew that at some point, I would be climbing straight up them to Vermilion Cliffs. I would be exiting the canyon without any information on water for the next day and a half on the high plateau I was climbing to. I loaded up with eight liters of water. That was quite the load even on flat terrain, let alone a 2,100 foot climb.

I got downstream to my exit point. I cleaned out my shoes and socks and emptied all the sand and wrang them out best I could since this was possibly my last wet river walk. I was following a route that another hiker posted for how to get out of the Paria Canyon. I only found information about 2 groups doing the route on the internet, though there could have been more. The route was pretty much scrambling up scree and rock. It started going up a scree slope, then traversing over to another scree slope where there was a cliff band I had to get up. A little bit of exposure on the cliff band but not bad. The scree was mixed with dirt and definitely unstable at times, and it was extremely steep. I found myself following mostly sheep trails since they obviously know what they’re doing.

the route up

I headed upward with the river disappearing quickly below me. I climbed to a narrow buttress where there were actually a couple of cairns showing the way. They led me to a crack to get over the next cliff band, where I had to take off my pack and carry it because it was too narrow. From that point on, it got steeper, steeper, steeper. I’m not sure who looked at the slope and thought “I can climb that”. The sun was out, and with my heavy load of water, I basically just took it slow and steady with frequent short breaks. I trudged up and up. There was a bit of exposure towards the top, but not too bad either. It was just so incredibly steep and unrelenting, though doable.

the route up

I finally crested the steep part and took a good long break, taking in the Paria Canyon 2,100 feet below me. It was quite a sight, and looking down, it was astounding how vertical it was below me that I had gone straight up with my big load. Just taking it all in, steep slope, the river below me, and the canyon spread out in both directions, I just started laughing, trying to comprehend the situation. It was one of the hardest climbs I’ve ever done, but I beat it! And I’m glad I did; it was well worth the views. I was just so happy and excited to be on top and take everything in.

I had to keep moving, and I had about a mile of cross-country to an old reservoir that used to be a ranch. The cross-country wasn’t too bad after I got my bearings. The reservoir had water in it but did not look or taste the most appetizing. Tasted like a mix of algae and dirt even after filtering. I decided to just take on one more liter in my filter bag and try not to use it. From this point, I’m not going to see water for either 25 or 35 miles, though I think there’s a good chance I’ll see people tomorrow and might be able to ask for some. Either way, I should have enough water to make it 35 miles worse case.

After the reservoir, I did some brief cross-country until I got to a road which I could follow for a couple of miles. The road was a 4×4 track that looks like it’s used by one or two people a year, but easier going than through the weeds and desert growth. At this point, I was looking for a campsite, but was not seeing anything flat or open up here. The road passed right next to an old short water tank with a cement bottom. The tank was dry, and the cement was clean and flat. Looked like a perfect camp spot to me. I set up a cowboy camp, and I could even walk around without my shoes and socks on to let everything air out. It’s hard to do in the desert with all the pickers. It should be a good spot for stars since the moon is new right now and I’m in the middle of nowhere. I’ll hit the harder part of the alternate that I’m doing tomorrow with about 5 miles of straight cross-country. We’ll see how that goes.

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Hayduke Trail Day 34

Yeti — Fri, 05 Nov 2021 01:18:04 +0000

Start: Wire Pass Trailhead

Finish: Paria Canyon between Second and Third Crack

Daily Mileage: 19.9

Trip Mileage: 599.2

Elevation gain/loss: 1692/2541ft

The wind performed an audible early last night, coming from the complete opposite direction for the rest of the night from when I set up camp. It was early enough that I reversed my gear inside my tent to shield me better from the wind. It didn’t actually get too cold, though. Since I was close to the border with Arizona and daylight savings time will be ending this weekend, I preemptively set my devices to Arizona time which will effectively give me back to West Coast time with no time zone shift. I’m just going by the sun anyways; that’s all that matters, but I needed my alarm to go off at the correct time so I didn’t miss an hour of hiking time.

I was ready to hit the trail when the sun rose. That was about the time that others started arriving in the trailhead parking lot for the Wave. I was the first one at the gate. I repeated a bit of trail that I did yesterday since I couldn’t camp in the wilderness, and it was pretty easy for the most part. There was a little bit on the Wire Pass Trail that I had not done yesterday, and it involved one spot with down climbing on a rope and a sketchy log. But plenty of people do that every day, so I was more than capable.

note the stick as a high water mark

I got to the junction of the Wire Pass Trail and Buckskin Gorge, and I immediately saw the petroglyphs that I missed yesterday. I was looking in the wrong spot, and the light just caught them as I walked past them in the other direction. It looked like a big, flowing river design with animals and people.

I headed down Buckskin Gulch, which is a slot canyon that went on for 11 and a half miles. That’s quite a stretch for a continuous slot canyon, and it’s one of the longest in the world. That’s one of the reasons I wanted to get this other permit to do this other trail since I love these slot canyons. This diversion will take me well off the Hayduke for a few days, but hopefully it will be worth it. The canyon immediately narrowed in, and it was generally between arms’ width and up to 50 feet or so in a few places. For the most part, it was one or two arms’ width. That’s quite a slot canyon for the distance.

One of the things I love about canyons is just seeing the effects of past flash floods. There are many places in this canyon where there will be a log lodged 30 feet or more above my head. It’s just hard to comprehend what it would look like to see all that water rushing down the slot canyon, though obviously I wouldn’t want to be here for that. There was even a ladder lodged about 30 ft. up at one point probably from that scramble in Wire Pass. Just amazing what the water can do in addition to carving the entire canyon flowing a couple times a year.

The canyon started out pretty easy, just a stroll through the winding passages. There were some pools with water, and some of them spanned the slot canyon, but early on there were rocks placed so you didn’t have to get your feet wet. However, that soon ended, and I came to my first wade. I knew I would be getting my feet wet today later on for sure, so I decided to just go for it in my shoes. It turned out to be a wise decision since there were widely spaced potholes that had to be waded, and it would have been a hassle to take off my shoes each time.

The slot canyon was just amazing, though. At times it was so tall that it was dark where I was walking, and I couldn’t see the sky above me. That did get a little bit dreary after a while, though. For the first half of the trail, I only saw the sun once for less than a minute. As I progressed down the canyon, there were more and more wades. I went almost to my waist twice and was getting ready to lift up my pack before the ground started rising. My hiking poles were absolutely imperative to feel in front of me to find the shallowest route. Towards the end of the first half of the route, the wading got very frequent. With the darkness and all the wading, I started getting cold even moving as fast as I could. I rounded a corner, and there was a huge patch of sunlight and three guys taking a break that had passed me earlier. A great spot to stop and warm up!

The second half of the canyon was easier. There was no wading like the first half, thankfully, and it was mostly a smooth stroll through the gray canyon. There was one scramble that got a little bit tricky, and there was a rope to help down climb a near-vertical 20-foot boulder. Someone had chiseled a few footholds into make it easier to climb down but it was still a little tough, especially with my pack on. Not too hard, though.

I tried to shoot the canyon as I was taking pictures, but it’s so difficult to do with the lighting in the canyon. There’s often light and dark parts and the canyon where the sunlight hits part of the canyon and not the others, and the camera just doesn’t want to pick up both the light in the dark parts. I’ve been experimenting with some other techniques, but I think it will ultimately go back to post-processing when I get home.

A river came in from the left, and I assumed it was the Paria. This is the same river that I hiked up about a week ago, and now I’m going to continue down it. I joined the river only about 10 miles from where I first picked up the river about a week ago. That shows you how circuitous this route can be even though this is an alternate that I’m doing that’s off the official route.

When the Paria came in, it was nearly constant crossing the river. It was often ankle-deep, so not a big deal, and the ground was firm with no real quicksand to speak of which is nice. The canyon got a little bit wider as well to accommodate the bigger river, but it was still generally 50 feet or less wide. It looks totally different than it upstream, just a narrow canyon with tall walls. I wandered down for quite a while but made pretty decent progress down the trail and soon got to Big Spring. I filled up my water for the night there. That was my initial goal for the day, but it was still early, so I continued on to see how far I could get.

I continued downstream, and after I covered 18 miles or so, I just started losing energy. I set a second goal for the day arbitrarily, but my energy levels were just waning. When I got to a decent-looking campsite, I decided just to call it about a mile short of my goal. Since this is a nice canyon, I didn’t want to just put miles on through it; I wanted to be able to enjoy it, and I knew I wouldn’t have enjoyed it as much as I would tomorrow morning, so I’m sure I made the right call to stop a little bit early. Camped under some cottonwoods next to the river.

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Hayduke Trail Day 33

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

Start: Trail Angel’s house in Kanab

Finish: Wire Pass Trailhead

Daily Mileage: 20.7

Trip Mileage: 579.3

Elevation gain/loss: 1784/2104ft

Note: I included a ton of pictures in this post, but also didn’t post many more. It was hard to decide with the incredible and varied scenery of the day.

After scarfing down a big bowl of oatmeal and fruit for breakfast, Deena drove me back to the trailhead. I could have hitched, but my last two experiences with this road weren’t that great, and I wanted to hit the trail early to allow myself time to enjoy today. I started hiking at the crack of dawn once again.

At first, I followed Buckskin Wash. The wash started as one of those glorified drainage ditches, but canyon walls soon started to grow around it. They progressively grew taller as I went down the canyon. I stayed in the wash for a while, but it turned meandering with occasional potholes, which made for slower going. So, I took to the game trails which generally followed the sides of the wash. Much easier hiking. I did take quite a few pictures in the canyon. It was pretty scenic with red rock and the rising sun. I enjoyed that section and thought that meant there must be a lot more to offer for the upcoming section of Buckskin since there’s an actual trail down that.

I got to the Buckskin trailhead and got on the actual trail down Buckskin Wash. For the first two or three miles, it was relatively bland compared to the part of Buckskin that I had already been on, which is surprising since there wasn’t even a trail in the first section of Buckskin. However, the terrain was transforming as always from a canyon to sculpted and colorful rock formations.

I took a side trip to Edmaier’s Secret, which was about a quarter mile off the trail. It was a fantastic place! There were all sorts of weird rock formations back there. There were white fins that were crisscrossed with lines to make them sort of look like brains, and they were curved around other layers of rock like a coating. There were also very thin fins where the rock had worn away around it but it must have been a harder mineral that didn’t weather as fast. Also, lots of color in the area. I stopped and took lots of pictures and took a break. Definitely a well worthwhile detour and a scenic section of trail, but only a few footprints compared to the yellow brick road going down the main wash. I was definitely the first person here in a while.

Back in Buckskin Wash, the wash did turn into a canyon, which I’ll be following more tomorrow. I went through maybe a mile of slot canyon, and it was a pretty cool place with sand evenly coating the bottom most of the time, and the rock walls coming straight up from the ground, usually less than arms’ width apart. The rocks were rounded and curved as happens with the canyons out here, and it’s always such a fun time to walk down. I took tons of pictures as well. I’m playing with some of the settings on my camera to try to take better pictures in the canyons with the mix of dark and light. That’s pretty difficult still with the huge amount of contrast between the shade and bright sun.

I came to the junction with the Wire Pass Trail, which is a junction of slot canyons. There was supposed to be some petroglyphs at the junction, and I looked hard for them but could not see them. Oh well, they must have been pretty faint because I knew I was looking in the right spot.

I briefly headed down Wire Canyon and climbed out of it to take a shortcut to get to the trail heading into Coyote Butte North Wilderness Area where the Wave is. After climbing up a steep ramp, it was pretty easy to follow a wash which got me back to the main trail to the Wave.

Once I got into Coyote Buttes North, I started taking pictures almost at every stop. There were so many different layers to the rock, all the layers had different colors, and at times they swirled around each other creating fantastic patterns that you wouldn’t think were natural. There was bright yellow, gold, red, white, and tan in alternating layers and swirling together. It was quite beautiful.

I followed the route, but before I went to the Wave, I wanted to make some pit stops for some other points of interest. My first stop was hunting for dinosaur footprints. Deena mentioned there were dinosaur footprints in the area, though she had never been able to find them. Kate had figured out a couple of locations where they were supposed to be and gave me waypoints to them when I was in town. I went to the first waypoint and looked around pretty hard and couldn’t find anything. I looked as closely at my GPS as I ever had, zoomed all the way in, and I was definitely at precisely the correct location. After searching for probably 15 minutes, I gave up and decided to move on to the second location which was nearby.

I got to the second location and immediately saw the footprints. They were very apparent and clear, and it was quite a sight to see. I’ve never seen anything like that in real life, let alone in the wilderness, and it’s a different type of interesting history. After I saw the first set of prints, I looked around and saw many more in the same area. Like they were dancing or running around in circles. I took many pictures and enjoyed the area. It’s such an amazing experience to see a legendary dinosaur sign, even if it wasn’t from the largest dinosaur.

From there, I headed up a little bit further to Sand Cove Wash. There was more swirling rock up there, almost Wavelike. I walked in the wash and took many, many pictures. There’s just so much movement and color in this area; it’s just so spectacular. It’s also surprising that there were very few footprints and none recently in this area. It looks like everyone just makes a beeline for the Wave, and that’s all they see in this area, which is pretty typical but also disappointing (except for me).

I explored the Sand Cove area for a while until I got to a pour-over which I could have gone around and down, but I didn’t know what lay ahead, so I decided not to risk it.

From there, I went up and found The Second Wave too. This is another area which had swirling yellow and red together, which was unique. It was a really cool sight, and then I took a bunch more pictures. Also another area where there were very few footprints.

I worked my way to the actual Wave since it was getting later in the day. The Wave was nice, but in total, I think all the other sights were better. It’s such a beautiful area and it’s a shame but not surprising that people flock to see just a single Instagrammable spot.

The Wave was really cool and pretty much just as pictured with swirling lines from the occasional stream that courses through during flash floods. There was a big full pothole at the bottom that looks like it’s usually filled with just sand. I was expecting the Wave to be clean since I think the pictures I’ve seen of it before I thought were all rock. It was really cool looking though, and I took a bunch more pictures. At this point, my camera battery was starting to get near empty. Quite a feat for only a single day of taking pictures.

I hung out at the Wave for a while until it started getting later when I headed back. The Wave and Coyote Buttes North is surrounded by Wilderness area, but a ranger told me I couldn’t camp in this area for some reason. I don’t understand that. That meant that I had to hike out to the Wire Pass Trailhead and camp there since it was BLM land and then repeat some steps tomorrow for a couple of miles to go back in when my Buckskin Gulch and Paria permit starts. Not the end of the world but slightly annoying. It was an easy walk out though, so it should be an easy walk back in tomorrow morning.

When I got to the trailhead, I started talking to Sassy who attempted the AT last year but had to quit due to COVID shutting down the trail. She was fun to talk to and wanted to help, and gave me a couple extra liters of water since I didn’t see any water today and I’m not going to get to any until tomorrow night. I carried seven liters out of Kanab, and I think I would have had enough, but there were plenty of people at the trailhead now, so I figured I would just ask for some more water just in case. I’m not sure I’ll even need to carry it out tomorrow, but we’ll see what I end up with after dinner and breakfast. It’s about 15 miles before the first reported spring tomorrow.

Set up stealth camping near the trailhead so I can dash right back in tomorrow morning. The night started out warmer, but there’s a clear sky so that can change quickly out here. An absolutely fantastic day today with amazing sites and places to experience! There should be a lot more the same tomorrow. How can you beat slot canyons, dino prints, the Wave, and all these swirling colors and unique rock formations and experience today? If I would have actually found the petroglyphs, there wouldn’t have been much more to ask for.

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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.

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.

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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