Wednesday, April 7
15.7 miles.
Slept okay this night except for my alarm waking me up way too early. We had to get up in time to apply for next day permits for The Wave. The place to apply was on the other side of town from us which seeing as how Kanab is not that big meant it only took us like 15 min to get there. We met up with Captain Jack there who was carrying his heavy af pack. He had his usual a lot of water plus nine days of food until the south rim. It seems brutal but if he can pull it off godspeed captain.
The line for the lottery was nuts. Over 120 people applying for 16 permits or 4 groups, whichever came first. Since only one person can apply per group that meant that there were easily over 150 people wanting to go the wave.
The process for the walk up permit was listen to a talk about how hard the wave is, fill out a form, turn in form and get a lottery number, respond when they call your number with the first name on the list, and wait to see if they call your number. Unfortunately, my luck didn’t hold out from yesterday and we didn’t get it. The first two “groups” selected were for single people which was a bummer. Means there were a lot more possible spots still open they couldn’t give out. I understand the need for a permit system for something sensitive like the wave and fully support it but I wish they didn’t the 16 permits or 4 groups thing. Just pick until you get 16 people if there’s capacity for that.
We drowned our disappointment in smoothies and vegan avocado toast at the juice place while the cutest little wiener dogs played around us. Afterward we headed to the hotel and packed up. While packing I got a bad cough I couldn’t shake. It got so bad I had to throw up a bit right before we left but that seemed to fix it. I think it’s my post covid cough again. It hasn’t flared up much this trip but maybe the early morning wake up or something flared it up.
Captain Jack hitched out before us since he had his stuff and thought it would be easier to not have the 3 of us try to hitch out together. Jordan and I walked a bit out of town. We got nervous when we saw a cop car on the side of main road out of town but it ended up being a dummy car to scare cars into slowing down.
We tried hitching for about 20 minutes when a woman with two cute young dogs picked us up. She was from Escalante and was having a “big town day” by going to Kanab. She was taking her doggos to the vet and couldn’t take us all the way but did take us around 10 miles out of town. Every bit helps.
Outside the vets place, we spent another maybe 20 minutes trying to hitch when an old white dude in a a pickup truck picked us up.
The other day Jordan and I ranked the types of cars/drivers most likely to pick up a hitchhiker. #1 was old white dude in a pickup truck. #2 shitty van life van driven by hiker trash. #3 Subaru outback. So far this has proven true on this route. This old white dude was also pretty cool. He was from California and had moved to Utah when we retired to run a hotel. His wife passed and he spent his time fishing. He had also worked as a utv guide, taking all kinds of people out on dirt road sightseeing tours. He said he had guided Tom Hanks and a few other celebrities. He had a few funny stories about working as a guide which made me want to either work as a guide or at least do a guided trip of some kind. Something where I don’t have to plan shit and just get shown cool stuff and not have to walk there.
He dropped us off at the spot we got off trail, another wash. We hiked a bit in and ran into Jack who had been not far ahead of us. We had some lunch and then hiked through the canyon wash for a while. It was a cool canyon, lots of slickrock and layered sandstone punctuated with Cottonwood and a few pjnyons here and there. The hiking didn’t really perk up until we got to the Buckskin Trallhead.
Captain Jack yogi’d some cold water from some day hikers and we set off into the Buckskin Gulch. We’ve had a lot of cool canyons and this was up there. It had the usual big redstone walls but there were also weird blocky towers and sweeping slickrock slabs. We didn’t get the wave permit but we did get to see some of the cool striations across some of the walls. The canyon narrowed at a few points and we got to go through sick slickrock corridors. At a junction with another slot canyon we found some petroglyphs on one of the walls. I don’t know much about the petroglyphs in this area (or in any area) but there were astounding to see. Little tiny pictures scribbled on walls by people long ago.
We hiked through another slot canyon, running into tons of day hikers on the way. This slot canyon wasn’t as dramatic as the Round Valley Draw (no 10 foot drop) but it didn’t have a little ladder climb that was fun.
We exited near a busy trailhead where we thought about having dinner and finnagling some trail magic but decided to keep hiking to the Stateline Campground, the point where the Arizona Trail actually ends and we across over into out second state.
At the AZT Monument at the campground, we ran into a group of 4 AZT hikers who had just finished their hike. Wing It, Rocket, Mayor, and 800 Smiles. I had seen Rockets youtube channel before I think and apparently Mayor had written a book on the AT. We had dinner with them and swapped trail stories, talked shit about certain hikers, and were just hiker trash together. Two of them were triple crowners and one of the dudes was actually another Mexican. He was the second Mexican triple crowner and had also done a bunch of other cool stuff like cross country biking and big rafting trips. Warmed my little brown heart to see another hermano out there doing cool shit.
We spent a long time talking to them while they waited for their ride from a local trail angel. Aside from our first day and meeting Jack, we haven’t had a chance to talk to many other thru hikers so this was a real treat. This seems like a big year for AZT thru hiking and I’m a little jealous I don’t do that instead. Also a little jealous they’re done while we have 300 miles to go. They only got to spend a few days near/in the Grand Canyon though and we’ll spend almost two weeks in it. I guess the Hayduke is aight.
After they left, we managed to snag one of the four campsites which means we can cowboy near a real table and can use that to pack up in the morning.
I have not been very stoked on this route as many of my entries have probably indicated. While some of the sections have been absolutely amazing, this definitely isn’t something I would thru hike again. That being said, I am so fucking stoked for the Grand Canyon. We were trying to describe the route the Hayduke takes through the Grand Canyon and it’s so stupid and complicated but also sounds so cool. We are only a few days away from what should be an amazing section and for the first time on this route, I’m excited. Now we just have to get through a few (or maybe many) miles of post-holing to get there.
Plants Outside 