Day 205 (HDT 21)

Day 205 (HDT 21): 19 miles

I knew it was going to be a cold morning. We were still making our way up the Paria River, so I knew I’d be walking in it early. But that didn’t lessen the shock at all when I first stepped into the ice cold water and my feet got soaked through. Truth be told, it wasn’t horrible at first. But as it went on, and I had to continually walk in the cold water for extended periods of time, it was pretty cold and uncomfortable. My feet lingered in the no man’s land between painful and numb, probably a good thing so I knew I had feeling the whole time.

We made our way up the Paria River, seeing cougar and coyote tracks constantly, before diverging of the Paria where Sheep Creek joined it. We began walking up Sheep Creek, but it soon dried up.

It was windy all morning, but this is when it really started to get crazy. There were massive gusts that would send sand flying. I still don’t know how it happened exactly, but when we were taking a break, there was a massive gust and we heard a thud, and a rock was now sitting a few feet away from us. I don’t know if it flew off the canyon wall overhead or if a tree slingshotted it, or if the wind picked it up and threw it but it was strange. And it probably would’ve been pretty painful to get hit.

We hiked Sheep Creek up to Willis Creek which was also dry, but had some cool narrows to walk through. This was a MUCH more gentle slow canyon than around Valley Draw. We didn’t even have to jump or climb down anything sketchy. There was one fun climb up on a tree branch that operated as a ladder, but it felt secure and was fun. Willis Creek was just easy walking through cool narrows.

And we even saw some day hikers here. We walked for a bit and got apples from them before continuing on. We made it up to Willis Creek Trailhead and began our detour into Tropic to resupply. After a little over a mile on the dirt road, the people we met on the trail drove by and offered to give us a ride into town. It was worked out great! We got into Tropic and got some good pizza in town. While there, we looked at the weather and it looked like it was supposed to rain/snow all night. I was thinking it, but I wasn’t going to suggest we get a hotel. But when Fancy Feast started looking up prices, I was game. When possible, i would strongly prefer to miss getting rain or snowed on.

The day only got better. After we booked a hotel room and were walking over to it, we saw the sign in front of the place light up and say “Hot Tub Open.” We both yelled at the same time. This had to be the first functional hot tub I’ve seen since before covid. Every hotel was just using that as an excuse to not have to run it, but not this one! After resupplying at the store in town and watching some football, I sat in the hot tub and had a great time. It’s kind of ironic that we’ve been walking in water almost nonstop for a couple days and that largely displeased me but now I love the opportunity to sit in a tub of water. Temperature matters.

Song of the day: hold my liquor-Kanye west