Sep 26: Pariah

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 "narrows" as "slots" so it was a tad underwhelming, but the tall yellow and grey cliffs were pretty cool, especially during sunset on our way back. Other Haydukers that pass them by shouldn't be upset at themselves.

We should be in Tropic tomorrow, ahead of schedule. But it is a Sunday, so we'll have to spend the night to go to the Post Office Monday morning. Still fine. Then it may take us a day longer to get to Kanab than planned, since we plan to loop through Bryce, but that should be fine too.

We may take a peak at Willis Narrows tomorrow morning (on the main route, but not on the Tropic resupply route).

I jumped off the river bank today with a much less muddy/soft landing than I expected. Did I tweak my hip a little? Only time will tell. Getting old is grrrrreat!