Sunday, March 21
16.4 + 4 bonus on alt. 20 total.
Last night’s campsite was absolute trash. The wind was howling all night and blew cow shit dust all over us. Our tents kept feeling like they were going to fly at any moment and the only thing keeping them from doing so was the magnetic force of my anger.
We hiked up Rock Canyon to the class 4 chimney to the Red Benches. A pack haul was “strongly recommended” but Jordan was able to make it up with his on. He did have to pass up his pack a bit but made it through fine. I was able to pass him mine and made it up easily enough. Having that positive ape index helps a lot sometimes. We did spot the other line Skurka mentions in the guidebook, a clean crack that with rope and harness would be an easy 5.something. Maybe with an R because of the very chossy rock.
We got onto the Red Benches, a big wide open plateau area with a ton of little nooks and crannies and ridges and towers and drainages and ledges. We followed the more efficient Skurka route through it though I still managed to go off course a few times and have to do a little wheezy scrambling to on track. There were more amazing views of the Henrys (still snow covered) and southwestern expanse all around us.
We spent too long getting through the Benches which was a bummer since I thought we could make it to the next water source in a day. From the Benches we scrambled down into Fiddler Cove Canyon, another grand winding canyon with loads of slick rock and looming sandstone walls. There was even a “bowling pin” tower at one point.
A little ways into Fiddler we came to a junction and a decision: stay in the Hayduke route through (literally and repeatedly through) the Dirty Devil river or take a 4 mile longer high water alternate. Let me copy the description of the Dirty Devil from the guidebook:
“This was some of the nastiest water we have sampled. It is highly alkaline, probably full of heavy metals, definitely bearing the accumulated agriculture waste of the Fremont River and who knows what else.”
It also riddled with quicksand at its banks and deep within some of the crossings (which you can’t see because of the silt in the water). All that coupled with the fact that it’s been raining pretty much every day for the 11 days meaning the river was probably flooded, we decided to take the alt through Hatch Canyon.
In hindsight, it was a good decision. Some of the alts have been hit or miss (mostly miss) but this one was awesome. Hatch Canyon is immensely windy and definitely feels very long but it has so many of the great Utah canyon features. Massive sandstone walls, slick rock layers, chossy huecos. It was also pretty warm in the canyon though which made conserving water pretty hard. We had only 4 liters to last us the 24 miles to the next water which meant lots of little sips, not enough to really satiate thirst.
The first 4 or so miles were in the canyon but then we had a really fun scramble out of it. It was an incredibly airy and exposed scramble up on loose shale and scree. There was one point where I had to do slme very easy but very high consequence bouldery moves to get to a not at all solid ledge. Then I had to traverse what was to me a really easy shale footpath but to Jordan looked ridiculously exposed. We climbed our way on onto a dirt road, taking maybe not the official alt out.
The dirt road was again very windy and cold. We were blasted with strong bursts of wind every so often and by huge waves of sand and dust and dirt. We did have some nice views of the Dirty Devil below though and looking down at how gross and brown and fast it looked me made me grateful for taking the alt.
The last few miles were another slog though. The views were nice but views can only carry you so far after a full day of hiking. Though the alt avoids most of the Dirty Devil crossings, we do have to do one to reconnect with the route. We initially thought we could do it tonight and hike the few more miles to get to the next water source but given how long the Benches and the various scrambles took us, we decided to find another shitty campsite near the river instead.
We’re planning on crossing the river first thing in the morning when it should be lower/slower and hopefully that will also give us enough time to dry off before trying to hitch to town. Oh yeah, since we did a few extra miles yesterday and we did 20 today, that puts us only around 15 or so from the road to town. Since most of it will be on roads, we can probably knock that out before too late and be in a real (ish) town tomorrow. Hotel and wifi and laundry and fries and phone calls. Can’t wait
Plants Outside 