Hey Dude, Hayduke

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 invented masks on top. Parts of Denver airport were crowded, but my gate area felt OK and my flight to Moab was about half full. Moab itself was a bit of a zoo, but I'm not planning on spending much time there. 

We'll see how resupplying works out. The Hayduke requires long food and water hauls, and unless you cache supplies, long hitches to tiny towns (Hanksville, Escalante, Tropic, Kanab, Grand Canyon NP, polygamist Colorado City). What I really should have done is use these two days to cache supplies for the biggest hitches, but I didn't think of that until it was too late. There are alternates to make some of the towns walk-throughs, which we'll do if we have to. Ideally somebody with a truck drives by and we can just hop in the bed without exchanging any aerosols. Out here that doesn't seem that unlikely. Or if we mask up and keep the windows open, maybe that'll work.

Anywho, that's what I'm up to. I'm carrying a nice camera (so heavy!) so hopefully I'll get some decent pictures I can share later. I probably won't post many pics on route but will try and diary and upload whenever I get reception (once a week?) 

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