Oct 12: Hack Canyon

Chugged a protein shake, coffee, and water this morning in order to be well hydrated before potentially never seeing water again. Then took off, and the miles came much easier than yesterday. The walls of Kanab Creek were still impressive, but rapidly came down in height as we moved along. We passed a junction with Jumpup canyon and then started finding trails that occasionally cut the corners off bends in the now-dry creek. The trail was occasionally sandy, but a heavy red sand that wasn't that bad to walk on. 

The creek did reappear once, cold and clear just north of Chamberlain Canyon, so I drank more there, but was still carrying 7.5L or so, which was quite heavy on my shoulders. We finally turned out of Kanab Creek into Hack Canyon, and the trail got better, with big cowboy cairns. Obviously just a use trail for cows, but it made following it easy. We only saw around 5 cows total all day though.

There was one more spring, Willow Spring, that had a nice flow and a nice concrete lining, but signs saying the water is not fit for human consumption. Some of our resources say the water has uranium in it. My deep-seeded philosophy of "people are stupid" extends to my own tribe (hikers) so I'm not sure what to make of this claim. Other hikers have definitely drunk it; I carried 1L away for emergency use only, and washed myself in it pretty liberally. Remind me to email BLM about it when I get home. I'd bet (based on absolutely no information) that yeah, it's got uranium, because there's a lot of uranium around here, so don't drink it regularly, but once won't make a difference. 

After Willow Spring we hit a fence and came out at an official trailhead and were then on dirt road the rest of the day. 

All in all we made it about 30 miles today, possibly our biggest day. We are about 30 miles from Colorado City, a polygamist Mormon town. It's supposed to have a terrible vibe. Can't wait!

We did the math yesterday night. We  now have about 30 miles to Colorado City, then 30 from CC to the Zion highway. All good routes to Zion are blocked (landslide took out the Weeping Wall trail and toxic cyanobacteria closed Orderville Gulch) but I'd still like to do the 20 miles out and back to the overlook (I haven't yet convinced Nano of the value of this; he's done that section before). But if we do almost 30 tomorrow (Tuesday), resupply quickly Wednesday morning and do 25 or so miles that day, then we could cross the highway and finish Thursday. Definitely by Friday, and I fly home from St. George Saturday.

There's some question about how hard that last section before the highway is, and where we'll get water (if the Virgin River has bacteria, does the East Fork, which we cross south of the park?) We'll cross that canyon when we come to it.