Day 195 (HDT 11)

Day 195 (HDT 11): 9 miles

After waking up in the middle of the night again with the urge to vomit, it was an easy 3 miles to the road into Hanksville. I really hope I’m not developing some late stage peanut intolerance cause PB is like 40% of my calories when thru hiking. We waited about 45 minutes for a ride into Hanksville. We passed the time by playing one of my favorites to pass time: the name game. With the extreme lack of traffic, I was worried it might take longer. We had 3 contracting trucks drive by, then maybe 2 more cars, and then a mini van that stopped and gave us a ride. The guy has been traveling around the country for nearly 2 years and his van was packed full but he let us lay down in the small space that was his bed. Thru hikers will squeeze into whatever crevice possible for a ride. “I don’t have enough space” is never really a valid excuse. Last year I squeezed in a guy’s prius that was moving to Alaska and was packed to the gills.

When we got into Hanksville, I picked up my package at the post office with new shoes and food. Another pair of Altra’s, another 1,000+ miles.

I bought a really cool new hat at the small store in town along with earbuds cause mine were at like 25% volume. I then spent the next 6-7 hours hanging out a Duke’s slickrock Grill resting up and chugging Dr Pepper. Fancy feast ran around town a little to do things like bathe and laundry, but I pretty much was glued to the chair. Bathing is in the lower end of my concerns while hiking. I did throw my socks in the laundry though considering they all have holes in the heel and toes and were approaching concrete stiffness. The desert really eats them up.

While in town, I took care of our Grand Canyon permits. Even with winter approaching, these can still be kinda hard to get. I did it roughly 3 weeks before we will likely get there and they still said that’s kind of short notice but they should be able to get it processed in time. It is crazy planning campsites 3 weeks out on a thru hike, but I’ve heard they’re pretty good at working with Hayduke hikers when they can help.
And they were very nice when I was talking with them on the phone. That didn’t mean the process wasn’t a pain in the butt though. I spent way too much time creating tiny text bubbles and struggling to move them around on my phone today. And then I had to download a fax app to send it in, and it wants to charge $10 per week, but luckily there was a 3 day free trial. “Getting a subscription on a faxing app” was not on my bingo board of things I think I’d do while thru hiking.

We finally left town around 6ish and it didn’t take too long to get a hitch. A really nice couple from Salt Lake City, that was headed in the opposite direction, picked us up and gave us a ride back to where the trail crosses 95. We then saw a beautiful glowing desert sky sunset and did a little night hiking but still fell short of 10 miles for the day. But it was basically a rest day so that’s alright.

Song of the day: diamonds dancing-drake and future