Day 199 (HDT 15)

Day 199 (HDT 15): 28 miles

It was a horrible night of sleep. Around midnight the wind picked up and did not let up all night. With the sand, it was impossible to get stakes firmly in the ground. I had put on my rain fly, which requires stakes, for a little extra warmth. But around 3am I got out and took it off cause it was flapping so loudly and also slapping my tent. It was a little better with it off, but I could still feel the gusts of wind slapping me in my tent. I really didn’t get much sleep. When the clock hit 6:45, I was unrested, but at least happy to get out of there.

We had to wait for the sunlight to be able to navigate a short bit on the alternate around Moody Canyon before hopping on a dirt road we would be on most of the day. It was easy navigation and I was on the road before I knew it, cruising along.

It was cloudy when we started the day which made me a little nervous for rain. It didn’t end up raining, and the clouds ended up being fantastic. It felt great to get a break from the sun, and unlike most days, it didn’t feel hot at all. It was a little windy going across some of the mesas, but I can’t complain.

We passed a few gross water sources along the dirt road on the alternate before we went into
Silver Falls Creek/Canyon. We ended up seeing some good potholes on there and a lot of water at the end of it near the Escalante.

Surprisingly, we saw some day hikers in the canyon and we won 2 of them a beer. Half of them bet they wouldn’t see anybody else, and we surprised them. These might be the first other hikers we’ve seen excluding the small road alternate that took us through a popular area in Arches.

We took a short break a few miles before the Escalante and I left first. About 2 miles later, I realized that I left my hat behind. I’m trying to throw these things away on this trail for some reason. Thankfully when Fancy Feast met me at the river, she had it. It is so outrageously large, I don’t know how I could lose it.

It ended up being really easy to ford the Escalante River. We even went barefoot to keep our shoes dry. After we crossed, we just made it to Harris Wash about 2 tenths of a mile away. and the water in it was flowing strong. Accepting that we’ll have to walk in that tomorrow, and probably have wet feet all day, we camped just short of it so we could keep dry feet for at least one more night.

It felt really good to have a pretty big mileage day. We even ended by 7pm and didn’t even get up early. It just makes such a huge difference having most of the day be on dirt road and an easily navigable wash rather than a slow-moving canyon or route finding. We’ll get back to that soon enough.

Song of the day: jukebox jams-asap rocky