Saturday, April 10.
22 miles.
Woke up drenched again. As soon as we started packing up the condensation turned to frost which made putting away the bivy and quilt real fun for my hands.
We got back on the road and hiked on that for miles and miles. We passed by a big open meadow covered in snow that was very picturesque. The road wasn’t that too bad, still mostly easy rollers up and down winding towards the north rim. We stopped at the closed gas station/general store to see if we could find a place to get water or throw away the empty gallons we had packed out from the caches yesterday. No dice. Jordan and I sat around waiting for Jack who had packed up after us. The waiting have us time to practice our dribbling and take hilariously large shits. Maybe it was the hashbrowns from Jacob Lake.
Right before Jack got to the store, a dude on a motorcycle rolled by with what looked like bikepacking gear. He kept eyeing us and then turned back toward Jack. They talked for a while and Jack told us the motorcyclist had actually just talked to another Hayduke hiker at Jacob Lake that morning. So there is at least one other Hayduke hiker nearby. Maybe he’ll catch up and we can get a 2 v 2 basketball game going.
The rest of the morning was more road walking. It was pretty snowy looking all around us and I was glad we took the road. We ran into some AZT hikers who had opted for the road too, one girl solo and four white dudes. The girl seemed nice though we didn’t talk to her long. Jordan and I both got really bad vibes from the guys, as did Jack when we asked him about them late. Idk, just bearded sunglassed standoff ish white dudes. They didn’t seem to want to talk which is fine I guess. Jordan tried offering them the ball for the road walk but they weren’t interested. Their loss.
We reached the north entrance right as a ranger pulled up. He was a full law enforence kinda ranger, strapped and kitted out in Kevlar. Which is kinda hilarious that a ranger would be ready for a firefight or something. But anyway, he was nice enough.
He asked me for the permit which I of course had with all the correct dates. Because we had made it to Jacob Lakeb in one day and had hiked out fast, we were actually exactly on our permit date. Almost as if I planned it all along. We spoke to him for a bit. Despite the gun, he was very friendly and kept asking us if we needed any info about the park. We did get water, weather, and road conditions updates from him which was very useful. Water we were good on with all the snow melt. We figured that already from the road walk and seeing tons of puddles and little snow melt streams. He said the weather was supposed to be mostly clear with a chance of precipitation later on in the week. Maybe a cold front moving in too which is a bummer but we’ll be in the canyon where it’s warmer soon enough. He also said he had just driven on the road we were going to take to the Nankoweap Trailhead and that there was still a little snow but that it mostly cleared up. He also took the empty gallons from us and, sadly, also the basketball. It would have been great to keep the ball until at least the south rim but it was kind of a pain and would have really been annoying in the Grand Canyon. The ball has gone to a better place now at least. Gone but not forgotten.
From the north entrance we hopped back on the AZT, this time going north for a mile until it connected with the Hayduke and the dirt road we’d be taking to the trailhead. Immediately we got into some terrible postholing. Goddamn it sucked. Jordan went ahead of me for a bit and would make some steps. He weights less than I do though so every so often I’d step somewhere he had just stepped on and I’d fall right through. The inconsistency in the postholing made it so frustrating. I ended up just kicking in my own steps and getting my feet soaked as a I did it. It was only a mile but it took us so goddamn long to get through it. I’m so fucking glad we did the road walk. That would have suuucked to hike through all day.
The dirt road wasn’t as bad as the mile of snow on the AZT. There were patches of snow on and off but most of it was melting. The ranger had also driven through recently so there were tire tracks through some of the snow banks we could more easily walk through. Our feet still got soaked though with all the mud and water from the snow melt. We were able to collect water a few times so we definitely have more than enough to get us to the next reliable water source on the Nankoweap Trail.
We had dinner and tried to find a place to camp. We’re still up high, around 8800 feet so as soon as the sun set, it got chilly. After the usual struggle session, we found a flat-ish semi-protected spot. We’ll probably be freezing again in the morning but it’s just one more cold morning before we get to have some warm nights in (IN!) the Grand Canyon.
I’m so stoked for tomorrow. It’s an almost 6k drop in about 10 miles with a lot of exposure and views and sketchiness and it sounds so fun.
Plants Outside 