Adventures in Onionism

We are technically not in Bryce Canyon National Park. We got up for hotel breakfast and picked up my package at the Post Office when they opened at 8. A little bit of pack shuffling, "Am I really going to eat these raisins?", waiting for my friend to send me her new address, her missing the cutoff, and me re-addressing the postcard to my brother after crossing out the one irrelevant sentence, and we were off.  We just walked Center Street west out of town until it became the Tropic Trail and brought us into the heart of Bryce Canyon. The guidebook HDT doesn't take you through the best part of Bryce, which is a little weird. I guess it would be difficult to make a continuous route (you'd either walk highway to Tropic, or you could skip Tropic, hike into the park in the middle and do a loop to the north to catch the best part). Nano had never seen any of it; I think this is my fourth time, but it's still awesome. We then headed south on the Under the Rim Trail. It w...

Woke up and got going a few minutes earlier than usual. Sheep Creek was sandy and not a ton of fun, as I had to keep scanning for any bits the horses hadn't yet pulverized in order to get decent footing and make forward progress in the sand. But it was only a few miles and over with relatively quickly. There was a bit of petroglyphs at the junction with Willis Creek, though there unfortunately seemed like more modern graffiti than ancient stuff. We dropped our packs and did a brief out and back excursion up Willis Creek to check out the narrows. Then we turned back and headed north again.  Pretty soon we reached the trailhead and the junction with Sketumpah(?) Road. We walked that until it hit pavement, and then quickly caught two rides to Tropic. We were in town by 11am or so. I found wifi, booked a hotel, and we spent the rest of the day writing postcards and eating. We stayed at the Canyon Villages; the room was fine, but the TV didn't have cable, so Nano again missed a chan...

Great day today. We walked a road for a mile or three in the morning, goofed around with a pair of walkie-talkies I found, and then dropped into the Pariah River and headed upstream all day. There was water the whole time, and it got cleaner and more plentiful as we went along. We saw petroglyphs, a very strong piped spring coming out of a crack in the cliffs, beautiful red cliffs, my first ever pine cone with pine nuts in it, and bear and coyote tracks. The walking was easy, unlike yesterday's sand. Toward the end of the day we turned off the Pariah into Sheep Canyon, and that became less great. Maybe an outfitter brings dozens of people here on horseback? Maybe the BLM just rounded up a herd of wild mustangs? Horse tracks the width of the canyon, and less and less water until it dried up completely. But we did finish our 20+ miles early enough that we got to do a side excursion up Bull Valley Gorge. The guidebook says it has some of the best narrows in the area. I misread "n...

Oh boy. Day started off wonderful. (Maybe I should write blog posts in the morning?) We descended into Round Valley Draw after walking next to it on a road for a few minutes, as it became a wonderful slot canyon. We had to lower our packs first to make the initial entrance descent, and one other time as well, but nothing too difficult. Sliding against sandstone on your butt would feel better in long pants though.  The slot lasted for a mile or two and then joined Hackberry canyon, which we were in for the rest of the day. It quickly became very sandy, and travel was very slow. There was never a ledge or dense strip or rocks or anything to get a decent step on, just soft and pliable sand. We took a lunch break at a spring that was supposed to have water, but the water didn't start until about a half mile later. Clearly the spring and the water underground was getting the sand wet, which for a brief, brief moment, provided relatively firm footing. But then the water was flowing, whic...

A road day but a good day, calloo, callay! Dirt road almost all day today. We climbed up Death Ridge Road (really) and got decent views of badlands-type hills (Mudhills?) from the top. We were deciding whether to follow Jamal's route across ridges to Headquarters Spring, but the ridges looked pretty nuts, so we just stuck to the road. The road did turn the wrong way a mile or two further off, but the descent down a wash was pretty easy. It was tight and brushy with juniper at the top but opened up lower and wasn't bad. The wash basically hooked us in with another road that took us to Grosvenor Arch. As soon as we hit that road, we started seeing a small handful of vehicles, and the majority of them, unprompted, slowed down and offered us water. The first guy to stop knew of Haydukers and was doing a paleontology dig nearby. So, water problem solved, it would seem. (He also said Headquarters Spring was probably dry.) Grosvenor Arch was nice, if a little diminished by car accessi...

D wasn't up for giving us a ride back down 35 (70 roundtrip) washboard miles of Hole in the Rock Road, so our choices were to try and hitch, or just walk out of Escalante. We went for the latter. A major concern was water, and we couldn't quite figure that out. Buck30 says it's bad, but Jamal says it's good. I think it's actually going to be pretty bad, but there are a couple places where we'll probably see tourists, so we will try and yogi water from them. The calculus was that this route was guaranteed (no waiting for a ride), shorter by as much as 40 miles, which should allow us to spend more time in Bryce, and the official route didn't seem to have must-see stuff. I don't think the official trail sees much (any?) of Bryce, and Mike has never been, so that seemed like an obvious choice. I've done Under the Rim, but it's worth repeating. So after 35 miles or so we'll hook into mile ~70 of this section of the Hayduke, but then on the tail en...

Stephens Canyon was dry when we hit the bottom, then dry and sandy, but then we had to avoid a dryfall on ledges, and the ledges were very fun. They looked narrow and super sketchy from afar but were easy up close. We had one more dryfall to avoid, and encountered some poison ivy, but not unbearable--we just put on long pants and long sleeves. Then we finished Stephens at the Escalante, which was awful--super brushy and muddy and the brush had thousands of aphids. But we only had to do one or two bends before climbing over a pass to Coyote Gulch and getting a great view of Stephens Arch. Coyote Gulch was pleasant and beautiful, but not epic like Stephens. Too crowded, and there's a ton of different use trails and muddy tracks and stuff. We saw maybe a dozen groups of backpackers. I'm glad others were out there to enjoy the cool flowing waters, large caves/grottos, and a few more arches (a 3 arch day!) but it would be great if BLM could try and confine the use to one single trai...

Day started off great. We were pleasantly surprised to find fairly decent water in Halls Creek, and it just kept getting better. Also we started finding solid use trail with multiple sets of footprints, so we used that to cut off several bends  in the wash. We got to the Halls Creek slot twists, and weren't up for swimming, so we took the very well marked way around them. We cut over at the end, and I dropped my pack and went in reverse up canyon to see what we skipped. It was incredible. High walls like yesterday, but with water. Only 3 inches deep mostly but there was an unavoidable pool that I briefly tested to at least waist deep.  We continued on, occasionally losing the track, but mostly following a set of fresh Brooks running shoe tracks, "Brooksy." We finished Halls Creek, took lunch, chugged water, stocked up, and started up the slickrock Baker route. The rocks were broiling, and it felt like we were in an oven. Gaining a couple thousand feet didn't help eith...

Started the morning with a climb up Burr Trail (road) switchbacks. Good views. Immediately descended into Lower Muley Twist, and the whole thing was spectacular. Huge vertical cliffs over it, and some overhanging cavern cutouts that were really fun to walk through. Like when I paddled under overhanging icebergs in Alaska, but probably less stupid. Finished the canyon around 1pm and made our way to the Muley Tanks, potholes that often hold water throughout the year. There are 6 or more of them up the slickrock face, and 2 or 3 had water, or rather, had tea. About a foot deep at the deepest and 6 or 8 feet around, covered in film, and full of bugs. I was really hoping for better, but at least it was cold, and my rear end hasn't exploded yet. I did remember to chug before leaving, so I barely needed water the rest of the day (only a few hours, but hot). Unfortunately one of my Platypus bladders sprung a leak so my capacity is reduced by a liter or so. We branched off from the main rou...

Hard day. The first two cattle troughs we saw today were dry, so we were both out of water by the time we got to this measly pair of springs. At least in the second one Nano found an earthen blockage like a dam that created a pool to fill from. We had lunch there, and I packed water out, but I forgot to chug before leaving, stupidly. Four hot miles later was Swap Canyon, and the springs there were garbage. Really just the last remnant before it goes totally dry. I actually was able to fill a bottle, but it tastes really alkaline, so I can barely stomach it. I'd say it wasn't quite as hot today, and there was wind, but it often felt like it was just sucking the moisture from my body. And the route felt very circuitous. It was traversing in and out around the head of all sorts of drainages to avoid going down any of them, but there still managed to be two descents on truly crappy dirty rock. We descended Swap Canyon and made it into Capitol Reef National Park. The sunset was amaz...

You should take the low alternate around them. Good night. 

Resupplied in Hanksville today. We had a wager about how long it would take us to get a ride. Nano said 53 minutes, I said an hour 45. It took 3 minutes. And we rode in the bed of the truck, so no COVID worries. The Post Office was friendly, I sent home old maps and my pillow and tripod, which weren't pulling their weight, though only 3 oz each. The campground regestration office where we actually sent our food drops though, was unfortunately not open and didn't open until after noon. We showered, ate, used the Internet, and finally around 4 tried leaving town. We couldn't get a ride, so I struck up convos with employees at two businesses about potential new one-time business opportunities. The first thought I was a creepy weirdo and "but I work for the government! Here's my ID, you can Google me!" did not not assuage her concerns. The second interrupted me to say "you mean the Hayduke?" and gladly accepted. So $20 later we were back on trail. Made a...

Woke up on whatever plateau we were on, traversed it a bit more, then descended into Fiddler's Cove Canyon, which was neat but short and led us to the Dirty Devil River. It was flowing about ankle deep, which was nice, but it's apparently undrinkable: silty and full of ag waste. It didn't seem silty at first, but got more so as we went upstream. It would have been wonderful if it were a couple inches shallower, we could have easily splashed along in the creek. As is, walking in the water was slow, but the shores were very slick and muddy, and the canyon is brushy otherwise, so we constantly switched back and forth. No major falls into the mud, and we were done in 2.5 hours, so I'll call it a win. We left the river for Poison Spring Canyon, which has a jeep road most of the length. We took a long lunch and slowly made our way up canyon. Passed an amazing spring set in the canyon wall and walked off with masonry to keep animals out; it felt lovely. This was at the end of ...

Woke up early to get to the Hite Outpost (a Lake Powell former marina that no longer has enough water to launch any boats) before the employee left to run errands on her day off. We hiked early and fast enough that we woke her up, so mission accomplished. I took a shower, ate junk food, and drank Gatorade. It felt amazing. She gave us a ride to the turn off for the trail (neither of us gave two turds about skipping ~2 miles of pavement walking, and she let us get out and look around on the bridge over the Colorado). She was convinced that we could not go the way we clearly had to go (and did in fact go) so that was awkward. I mean, there are cliffs involved, but it was a short class 4 chimney that only required two or three moves but did require a pack haul. I was in a pretty emotionally ragged state, it being a million degrees and all, so Nano did the heavy lifting (both our packs contained 7 or 8 L of water leaving Hite) . The smoke from the fires is coming in, and the air is pretty ...

Started out with Young's Canyon. Lots of dropping in and out around pour offs, though the monster climb in and out were well cairned. There was some poison ivy right before Youngs spills out into Dark, so I backtracked and put on my long pants for a bit. Then all the sudden, running water! Holy hell, running water! Dark Canyon was spectacular. The water was low enough to splash across almost whenever, then there were gorgeous pools easily avoided on shelves that almost always go, on both sides of the creek. So fun. I could have gone swimming seven more times if we had the food and time. At the end of the day we crushed the climb (1200 ft/mile?) out on the Sundance Trail, hurrying to get it in at last light, since trying to follow those cairns in the dark would be bad. Kept going a little more on the surface in the dark to get to a road. Aiming to get up early to get to Hite. Owner said she'd open the store for us, but she may go into town later in the day. Up to 8 blisters now....

So hard. Brushy and annoying. Left the south entrance of Canyonlands this morning, then jeep roads through Bobby's Hole and Pappy's Pasture. Then Homewater Spring (Note: the water coming out of the initial pipe is vomitously sulfuric. But if you take from the overflow of the first or second trough, the plants or something seem to have filtered it out. A bit of eau de bovine still, so treat it.) Then the Fable Valley "trail" which has decent views but then enters the awful brushy Fable Valley canyon. Climbing out of it is nasty dirty sandy cactusy and a bit of poison ivy-y scrambling. We're almost done but not quite. Feet looking pretty rough. Looks like we're going to hit Hite on the day the store is closed, unfortunately. 

Chestlerer Park and the Joint Trail! Note to future Haydukers: do not attempt to go through Canyonlands, especially the Needles, without permits. We saw two rangers in under an hour, both of whom asked about our permits. One was cool, one a bit gruff, both clearly would have cited us without permits. One also said he regularly patrols the Hayduke route. Neither gave us too much trouble that we're a day off our permit. Anyway, we climbed out of Indian Creek, found a surprise pothole, and headed cross-country for Squaw Flat Campground, where we luxuriated in running water. We both took 7.5+L, maximum capacity with us when we left. Except, you know, it was 2PM in southern Utah in early September so I've already drunk a third of it. Hope the springs coming up aren't too cow-fouled. The route to Chesler Park is crazy. Up down around slick rock, lots of climbing through the Needles. Then the super narrow Joint Trail. Google image search them if you haven't seen them. Alternat...

Hooboy. This was a long waterless stretch. There were a couple iffy sources on the way, but one was dry, one was very warm and alkaline and (Thanks Nano for planting the thought in my mind) tasted like urine, and one we honestly forget to look for because it isn't supposed to be reliable anyway. We were excited to get to Indian Creek, supposedly reliable, except it sucks. We were expecting a tiny creek, maybe occasionally dripping water, but all we found are two muddy puddles. It was very disappointing after 30+ miles from the Colorado (which, as I mentioned, was pretty dang tough to begin with.) Is this a dry year? Fall is worse than Spring typically, but damn. We're camped by the puddle, with 11 miles to go to the Needles district of Canyonlands where we can hitch to piped running water. Anyway, aside from that, today was nice. Jeep road, wash, Jeep road, wash, Jeep road, wash. We saw one biker and one UTV. Lockhart to Rustler Canyon into Indian Creek.  For anyone who's i...

We're somewhere, I guess. Walked jeep roads all day. Left the Colorado, went over Hurrah Pass, then back down to the Colorado. Had to stock up on water there because the next few sources are unreliable. It took us three tries to get to the river, and the third time still involved bushwhacking and me hopping off a large cutbank onto a dirt clod barely hanging on, lying down and extending my arm all the way to barely be able to reach the water, Nano 4 or 5 feet above me filling our platy bladders one at a time from the bottle I handed him, while I hung on to a plant root bunch that felt secure-ish. Jeeeezus. We took a picture but I look fat and bald in it and you can't tell how precarious it was. So then with 5L of water and 6 days of food our packs were heavy as hell. At least we passed a Ford Bronco trying to get up a steep and rocky stretch of trail. The first 3/4 of today were just full of Jeeps and UTV, not my favorite. There is an alternative way around that avoids the pass...

Woke up, got outta bed, hiked. Saw a couple more arches in Arches, then followed dirt roads and a pipeline with some x-country to a wash, where we got our first little bit of potholes and slickrock. That fed into Courthouse Wash, which we were supposed to take all the way to town. Unfortunately just before hitting the main wash, there were huge pools that would require swimming, which we were nonplussed about in the 50-something temps. A bit of scrambling got around that, but then the main wash was fresh beaver hell. Wall to wall bamboo and cattails. We'd push through that but multiple times came to deep pools we'd have to swim through. Maybe on a warmer day after we've got our legs under us? None of our trail notes mention this, so I'm guessing it's new. After a few times, we bailed and ended up on jeep roads and bike paths to Moab. If we'd bailed on the other side we could have done a nice slickrock route to town, but we didn't have much of a choice as to ...

I'm in the Canyonlands Field (Moab) airport waiting for Nano's flight.  Ok now it's several hours later and I'm in a campground in Arches. For some reason the guidebook route avoids all the famous obvious sites in Arches, so we took a route through Devil's Garden instead. It is very cold. It rained on us when. We started and once more. It's impossible to get stakes in the ground so mine are all under rocks. It's supposed to rain tonight. I am not looking forward to it. But it was nice to see to many potholes full of potential drinking water.  I regret my choice of smaller backpack (Circuit over Catalyst? I can't keep the names straight.) But I'm glad to have an appropriately sized framed pack (unlike in Alaska when I was dumb and went with a size too small so I could never get weight on my hips). My hands are too cold to type and I have nothing else to say. 

I am in Canyonlands National Park as I type this. I just flew to Moab from Washington, DC in order to hike the Hayduke Trail ( www.hayduke.org ). I have 6 weeks of vacation and we're hoping to do the entire ~800 miles, which works out to 20 mpd. I will be hiking with my buddy Nano, with whom I walked across Iceland. Not one to waste a perfectly good federal holiday, I flew out this weekend to goof around for a couple days before Nano arrives. We start hiking on Tuesday, directly from the airport. It is 100 degrees right now and the sun doesn't get this bright in DC, so I'm glad I came out a couple days early acclimate a bit, but on the other hand, it won't be this hot starting Tuesday so maybe it was unnecessary. Anyway, yes, COVID. My DC to Denver flight was nearly full, which United warned me about, but somehow I got a seat in first class so I wasn't too worried about it. It was also nice to see gate agents actively requiring folks with vented masks to strap inven...