Tuesday, March 16
18 ish miles?
Last night was rough. We decided to pitch because of some omnious looking clouds and I’m glad we did. Right before midnight the wind started going fucking wild, slapping our shelters around like they owed it money. It got so bad I thought my tent was going to go flying which it almost did. Two of my stakes popped out and I had to scramble in the dark to stick them back in and hope they held again. It started pouring again. We almost made it one goddamn day without rain.
The storm died down and my shelter managed to stay up the rest of the night. I got some sleep until when I woke up around 5am cold as usual. We managed to get a slightly earlier start and started hiking not long after sunrise. Warm orange open views of the plateaus and pyramids and towers all around us in the distance.
Less than a mile in both Jordan and I had to shit for the first time on trail. All that town food finally made it’s way through. Of course we were on a wide open exposed ledge and of course the hiker we passed yesterday evening came right around the bend (or contour). He kept hiking thankfully and I was able to practice my cat hole digging skills.
For a few miles we weaved around some of the big towers, picking and choosing the ways through the contours, descending ledges through short pour offs and drops. We caught up to the other hayduke hiker and hiked on and off with him for a while. He was being helped out by his dad who lives in Escalante, meeting him in his camper at regular intervals to resupply. I’m ridiculously jealous of this. Imagine not having to worry about resupplying or water?
We hiked through some more small canyons and wet washes until we reached a road. There we said goodbye to the other Hayduke hiker who was meeting his dad and zeroing in Needles to let his feet heal up.
Instead of continuing on the route, we took a back road that lead to the back of Needles Outpost where our resupply was waiting. The road was mostly easy until we hit a fenced off section for cattle. The road was a got mess and hiking through it was a mushy slog. We didn’t see any of the cattle but could see all the damage they had done to the area. We hiked through this for a few miles until we hit the fence and went around to the Outpost Campground and the store itself.
The owners were both there and they seemed super nice. They made fresh coffee for us and let us dump a bunch of extra food into a hiker box (which was actually our resupply bucket). We hung out on the patio of the store for not that long, just long enough to charge our stuff and avoid getting drenched again by another goddamn store that came in. This time it also started haling. We’d made it to the store just in time.
After trying to pet all the store cats and Jordan dumping a ton of his food in the hiker box, we headed out on the road to the visitor center. We made it just in time before they shut they wifi off and I was able to send and received a few voice messages from Kay. It’s been over two weeks since I’ve gone from home and it hasn’t felt any easier. This hike is beautiful and fun and amazing but I can’t wait for it to be over so I can go home.
We filled up on water since the next section has very limited water sources and hiked out of the visitor on a road back to the official route. We went off-trail right as it started to rain again and worked around way through some more canyons. These were fun, not too complicated with some fun little traverses down some layered slick rock. It was a little more spicy with the light rain but nothing unmanageable.
We got back to the main road and hiked on that right around sunset. Along the way we could see the Needles, a long row of towers half- covered in clouds and haze.
We had dinner at the trailhead and then got on what might be one of the most fun trails I’ve ever been on. I guess because of all the slick rock they can’t really build NPS level trails here so the trail was mostly just following cairns up and and all over. It even took us up a little tower gap with great views. At another section we had to go up a bolted ladder up a very wet section of slick rock, made even more fun by it being very dark by that point.
We made it far enough away from the road and found a little overhang cave near the trail. It was just big enough for us both to fit in our bivys and very well protected from the wind and rain. It’s a little claustrophobic feeling to have a giant rock right over me but at least it’s warmer that most spots we’ve been in and dry.
Plants Outside 