Monday, March 29.
17 miles.
Didn’t sleep great but what else is new? Did some more short errands. Tried to get a GSENM permit at the visitor center but it was still covid-closed. Oh well, we tried.
Bought new pants when I realized the ones I had had a ton of holes along the crotch and ass. They were great pants but not tough enough for the Hayduke. Bought some burlier stretchier but still girl pants that will hopefully last me the rest of the hike.
Bought some postcards and mailed home my ripped up pants and busted pillow. Couldn’t fix the leak so it’s going home for now. Couldn’t bring myself to throw it away despite the leak and busted baffel I hadn’t noticed until Jordan pointed it out.
Finally got some decent vegan food at the burger place and set off back on the route.
Jordan’s hands were feeling better, a little itchy he said which is hopefully a good sign. He’s still applying the cortizone cream and taking benedryl though which should help more. Fingers crossed.
We opted for the alt straight out of town instead of trying to hitch back to the Burr Trail switchbacks and the start of the section we missed. The hitch would have taken way too long so we’re just gonna move on and come back some other day to do that section.
The alt were taking is much shorter than the official route, around 30 miles shorter which means having haul less food. Which is great because this area is also pretty dry. We found some water in a little flowing spring and loaded up with 5 liters to last us until the next water, either a spring not far from our cache or the water we left at the cache itself. Not the most we’ve carried but for some reason this load really hurt my shoulder. 4 liters is fine but 5 feels like too much.
The entire day was spent on the dirt road from town. It was definitely not as scenic as other roads we’ve taken but it was mostly flat at the start. There was a horrendous headwind all day though that kept blowing gust of sand and dirt at us irregularly.
We got onto a litle open valley then started to climb. The climb would normally not be that bad but it actually felt warm and loaded down with 5 liters of water it was a slog. We did get some nice views of the Henrys again which we didn’t except to see again.
We kept steadily climbing on the road hiking straight into the headwind. Thankfully this section is actually forested with lots of pinyons and junipers so when we set up camp we had a lot of protection.
We settled into a spooky forest with loads of dead trees adding to the ambiance.
We actually got way further today than we originally thought we would so we might actually make out cache tomorrow putting us even further ahead of schedule. If we can get there before too late we might find someone to gift our bucket to as well which would be great.
This section is not supposed to be that great on the official Hayduke so I’m really glad we took this alt. The next section is filled with slot canyons and rivers and ruins and I’m excited for it, just need to get through tomorrow.
Plants Outside 