Sep 16: Poison Spring Canyon

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 the heat of the day, most of the hot section is a blur, other than a funny interaction with the only people we saw all day, two nice and funny 70+ men in a truck stopped and asked me what I was doing. They were blown away at the answer, but then were sorely disappointed that I had never heard of the people of Barrier Canyon. So much so that they drove off. 

Anyway, less than 10 miles to the highway and the hitch to Hanksville and my first resupply box. 

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