Day 222 (HDT 36)

Day 220 (HDT 36): 12 miles

Well today was pretty pretty pretty shitty. The “beautiful hiking on the esplanade” was not what I expected at all. I think the ranger was just fucking with us, cause there’s no way any sane person would suggest this, much less say it’s their favorite thing in the park.

We started off the morning with an easy 2.7 miles of road (where Fancy Feast saw 7 bison but I saw nothing) and a short trail down to a historic Teddy Roosevelt cabin. The cabin was cool and in really good shape. I’m not sure if it’s legal to sleep in there or not.

After the cabin, we began the off trail section. We were doing the same route as the Hayduke for a little bit, but at the point where it would’ve descended down into Saddle Canyon, we stayed up on the rim.

I saw Powell Spring on our map and thankfully it was running when I went to check it out. Even though we were walking through snow all day yesterday, there really wasn’t any collectible water, I was getting thirsty. We grabbed some water there and continued on.

After the spring, the topo lines began to spread out and I figured the terrain would be more flat and I would be walking in this flat open beautiful esplanade the ranger described. These topo lines, all day, turned out to be the most deceptive topo lines I’ve ever dealt with.

They looked spread out indicating it would be relatively flat, but it never was. We were constantly climb down and up steeeep drainages. Now these deceptive topo lines were not ideal, but they weren’t even close to the worst part of the day.

When the ranger described this route, I figured it would be pretty open. There might be a lot of sagebrush we had to weave through, but for the most part, it would be open. Hahahhahahahahahhahah

Nearly the whole day was bushwhacking through thick desert brush. I got tripped. I got snagged. I got cut. I got fed up with it real quick, but it never ended. There was maybe a half mile where we didn’t have to deal with brush. We could walk on the absolute edge of the cliff which was all rock and void of vegetation.
I thought the whole way might be like this, excluding the sure-death drop just a couple feet away.

Excluding that half mile, everywhere, even the cliff edges, were covered in brush. After the initial road and trail to start the day, we moved under 1 mph the rest of the day. I really don’t know how much ground we covered, 12 miles is just my best guess roughly following the topo lines, but I’m sure we meandered a lot more so who knows

I probably wasted an hour alone on one drainage. I really couldn’t see down to the bottom cause there was fucking brush everywhere, but I saw farther up the drainage there was a rim I should be able to walk in. I bushwhacked up there through thickkkkk brush and when I finally got there I saw it was nearly vertical rock at some point so I would not be able to walk it. I had to descend into the drainage from there in a steep rock slide and jump off a Boulder at the bottom to get down. Then I got to climb back up the other side, and then walk on slickrock at a nearly 40 degree angle hugging the rim, just trying to find a way to get back up on the actual ledge, and not fall while doing so. This was only one of the many “fun” adventures of the day.

It was actually nice having it kinda of cold in the morning so we could wear our layers for the buschwhack. I kept on my rain pants for as long as I could, but I had to take them off in the afternoon cause I was so sweaty. I now have a lot of cuts and a ton of microcuts on my legs which feel interesting.

The best part is that we get to do more of this bullshit tomorrow, and the topos look much worse. So I really don’t know what’s gonna happen

Song of the day: middle of the ocean-drake