Wednesday, March 17
24 miles?
Woke up in the little cozy cave which was maybe the best spot we’ve slept in so far. Did wake up to a somewhat deflated air mattress which sucked. Hoping that’s just from the cold and not from a slow leak.
We headed down the cool trail for a it until it turned into a more normal nps trail. We had a lot of options for getting through the park. There’s a ton of alternates that take you through different canyons and creeks. We decided to take one that took us on a road through the center of the Needles area. We figured we’d spent enough time in canyons the past few days and were about to hike through several more in the next few so it would be nice to have some open views for a bit. The road was also mostly flat which made for some cruiser morning miles. The Needles up close are also super cool. We saw them from the distance last night and got pretty close. They are such weird looking geological formations. Some look like giant dildoes or bowling pins, other seems to defy gravity with how they stand up.
We made it pretty quickly through the area and had lunch at a campground area. From there we had another decision to make as to the best way to go. We could take the official route into and out of a wash out of the park or we could take some more dirt roads. The wash had a “seldom seen Arch” but the road was supposed to have some ruins. We opted for the road to save some time and have some more easy miles and see the ruins.
That was hundred percent the wrong decision. The road was exposed and hot and a complete slog. We hiked for around 12 miles on that road with a few climbs and switchbacks. There were some views of some canyon walls and at one point I could see the snowy Henry Mountains in the distance but that was about it. It may have been faster than the official route but it was still a slog. To make things worse we didn’t actually see any ruins on Ruins Road, not until we got to almost where we reconnected with the original route. The ruin was fine, it was an old rock Farmhouse but I don’t think worth the 12 miles it took to get there.
We made it to the “Beef Basin” a wrecked cattle grazing area with some very cute cows. This was also the area where our next water source was, a little piped spring. The entire section before and after the spring was totally trashed by the cows, trampled and covered in cow shit. We spent a long time searching for the spring, heading further and further up trying to find it. We had all but given up and started to collect water from some potholes and snow melt when I found the mossy through and spring. The water from the spring was actually clear and not bad tasting, very surprising given the area.
We cameled up and filled up since our next water is maybe a ways away again. From there we walked on another wash for a few miles, had dinner around sunset, and managed to find a covered spot in the wash a little elevated under a tree. It’s a very small spot and we crammed together under the tree but it’s much warmer than the wash below.
The alts we took saved us a few miles so we are now maybe only 2 days from Hite Marina instead of 2.5. Tomorrow is the start of a long series of canyons though so that might be much slower. Most of the journals rave about the next section so I’m looking forward to it.
Today also is the 7th day on trail meaning we’ve been hiking for a week now. And we’ve not hit the 100+ mile mark (give or take a few lost for alts and yellow blazing). Only 700 more to go.
Plants Outside 