Thursday, April 1.
24.8 miles.
The cabin ended up being fairly warm and comfortable despite the hanta virus I probably contracted from the mouse droppings.
After saying good bye to our cozy little shelter, we got back to the Hackberry Canyon creek wading. We avoided it for as long as we could but the canyon narrowed down too much and we had to step in the creek. It must have gotten pretty cold in the canyon because the water was fucking freezing. My feet have never been so cold. I regretted sending home the waterproof socks.
I ran into some more longhorns down the canyon. There were over a dozen and wouldn’t move out of the way. They kept staring me down and refused to move. I realized there was actually a fence they couldn’t get through and were too afraid of me to go around me. I moved out of the way but they still wouldn’t go. Jordan was still coming down the canyon and they could probably see or smell him. I got him out of the way and the cows went by finally. Godspeed big buddies.
We shivered down the canyon until we finally got into some sun and the Cottonwood creek area. There’s a 4×4 road and few trailheads in the area but we didn’t bother trying to stop for anything. We were pretty annoyed by the cold feet so we rushed through the minor bushwhacking and sand trudging to the Paria River. I’ve read the Paria section is supposed to be a real treat and for the amount of garbage miles we had to go through down Hackberry, we thought it better be.
The first few miles were okay, some impressive sandstone walls and little caves. The river itself wasn’t too deep but it meandered a lot so we had to get out feet wet yet again. Throughout the day we ended up crossing it at least a dozen times but since the day was warmer it wasn’t as bad. The bad part was the deep mud we occasionally sunk into. On one crossing I almost slipped in and got drenched but managed to catch myself.
We hiked up the river the rest of the day, cutting across the river bends as much as possible. There were some frustrating bushwhack sections where we had to fight our way through reeds and Cottonwood trees.
We passed the Paria movie area where there used to be set that was used in a lot of Westerns. We also saw an old stone cabin that was the site of an old Mormon town. The hills around us were beautiful multi colored sandstone and limestone, colorful bands of rocks shooting up from the ground to the sky.
The area was definitely beautiful but we were both in bad moods from the cold morning and the slog the day before. The bushwhacking through the river and deep mud didn’t help. Neither did knowing how long the river was. We were going to in it for around 18 miles. We decided to try to get through this section as quickly as possible and get to town tomorrow which meant turning off brains, turning on some music or podcasts, and not stopping.
We spent the afternoon hiking as fast as we could through the river. The section did get much more dramatic aesthetically. The Paria is fed by a number of smaller canyons and we kept hiking past small confluences that added a lot of geological texture to the area. The drabber rock gave way to much brighter red sandstone, like what we had seen in some part of Hackberry but all over. Despite the exhaustion of the past few days, I still thought it was immensely pretty.
As we were hiking, I heard someone behind me. Another Hayduke hiker joined us! We knew there were other hikers not far ahead from some of the registers but didn’t think we’d see anyone. His name is Captain Jack and I actually knew he was around here from seeing some of his posts from the Hayduke hashtag on Instagram. He’s another hiker trash dirtbag who started a few days before us and had just finished the Florida Trail before hopping on the Hayduke. We got to talking about all the trails we’ve done and a bunch of other life stuff.
Around lunch I had checked how many miles we had left for the day and was dreading how far it was but when Captain Jack joined us, it definitely helped the time pass by way faster. We made it to the junction with Sheep Greek, the small creek we would take out of this section pretty fast in the end and all had dinner next to a clear little stream where I was able to clean Jordan’s filter a bit. Filtering muddy water for both of us had really clogged it up and I think we are both glad to clean it up a bit.
While we were eating, some clouds rolled in and we knew immediately it was probably going to rain again. I checked the weather on my inreach a few days ago and it said it was supposed to be clear the rest of the week. Captain Jack also has one he checked recently as well and it said the same thing. The weather has been so goddamn unpredictable though so we found a spot up away from the creek under a big tree where the three of us could pitch. It did start to rain right as I started writing this up but it ended quickly thankfully.
Tomorrow we have an easy few miles to the trailhead we’re going to hitch to town from. We’ll, maybe easy few miles, never know with this trail. Not sure how the hitch will go, it’s not supposed to be a busy road so we may end up road walking a bit to the highway to try to hitch from there. Either way, town a day early. Hotel, food, cable, and most importantly maybe new shoes. Mine are completely trashed from this section (and the 400 miles of desert hiking) and it’s definitely time to replace them.
Plants Outside 