Day 223 (HDT 37)

Day 221 (HDT 37): 13 miles

Wow. What a day. What a doozy of a day. What an absolute shit show of a day.

This is gonna be a long one so either just keep scrolling or strap in for a short novel.

We determined that we had to get tf out of this canyon. We couldn’t continue doing what we’ve been doing and make it to the next town before running out of food. So we started climbing out of the canyon near us, where the ranger told us we should be able to climb in or out of.

We didn’t even know for sure if we’d be able to get out of the canyon here. There are tall rock cliffs over 100 vertical feet tall that line the canyon. Unless you’re Spider-Man, the only way out is to climb somewhere there is a break in those cliff bands.

The topos stayed tight the whole time, but there were a couple points where they spread a fraction of a millimeter and I thought that might be a possibility. But we really couldn’t know until we got there, and we really couldn’t see until we got pretty close.

Long story short, it took 5.5 hours to move .6 miles as the crow flies. It was truly one of the worst things I’ve ever done, if not THE worst. Nearly a tenth of a mile per hour is a rare and remarkable pace.

It started out still bushwhacking through desert brush, then it upgraded to trees everywhere you had bullrush through, then it upgraded to every square inch of the ground covered in strong yet sharp plants which we nearly impossible to walk through because they were so thick and EVERYWHERE.

I was ready to throw my umbrella off the fucking cliff. Everything on the outside of my pack was getting caught on branches constantly. The water bottles or a strap would catch but then eventually slide by or snap the branch. The umbrella however, got caught in everything and would not let go. It held on for dear life, which is ironic cause I would’ve left it to die if I didn’t feel bad about littering. Eventually I couldn’t take it anymore and bent it a lot and strapped it under my roll-down top of the pack so the end of the umbrella wouldn’t get caught on anything.

Fancy Feast and i got separated kind of early in the day.
She kept following a rock field on the same elevation, but I headed straight up. I was hoping that if I got right below the cliff bands at the top, there would be a nice flat area to walk underneath them. Well, after some extreme struggle to get up there, crawling under obstacles, walking on steep rock fields covered in snow, and hurling myself through tree branches hoping they’ll snap so I can go through, I made it to the base of the cliffs. But there was not a nice flat area to walk. There were still thick trees, thorns, and all the fun stuff I had been dealing with. I was committed though. I rode the base of the cliff as closely as I could and refused to lose elevation again unless I absolutely had to.

I still really couldn’t see a break in the cliffs or a way out of the canyon. I heard Fancy Feast yell for me. After some Pete and repeating, she said there was a break up ahead on the cliff wall I was on. If I kept going I’d eventually hit it.

I did get to it and was happy to see it was climbable. It was extremely steep and I definitely could not have walked on it normally, but there were a lot of trees. I made my way up the steep, loose, and wet leaves, grabbing onto trees and holding on with all my strength. I was putting my full faith in those trees.

Eventually I got past the trees and it became slightly less steep, but now every inch of the ground was covered in sharp plants that were surprisingly strong. I really didn’t see another way to go, so I began climbing up the slope through the plants, on my way to another rock face where I’d have to find another break in the cliffs to be able to get to the top of the canyon. This was a poor decision. It was so brutal. It was so thick, and painful, and simply impossible to walk through. I moved so slow, probably about 20 feet every 10 minutes. Fancy Feast had caught up to me and reached this layer of the canyon. I yelled that she should probably go another way cause this was not going well. This route was so bad, she ended up getting out of the canyon before me.

When I finally reached the base of this next rock layer, after what felt like an entire day of struggle, I began the final climb up the break in the cliffs that Fancy Feast had already found since she passed me. It was some steep and sketchy climbing to finish it off, but really the whole morning was so traumatic it didn’t feel like much.

When we finally reached the top layer of the canyon near Parissawampitts Point, we took a break after 5.5 hours of hell without a single second of chill. My calves were on fire from being on a slope for the whole time without a second of a flat surface to stand on. I pulled out my phone and looked at where we camped last night. It was .62 miles away and we were there almost 6 hours ago hahahahah

Fancy Feast mentioned that she really liked at least having someone else around, just to have someone respond to her yells from afar to reassure her. I didn’t really feel that. I felt pretty much the same that I always do when uncomfortably scaling the side of mountains. Maybe it’s because this isn’t my first rodeo with off-trail, dumbass, shouldn’t be here, cliff-scaling stuff. There’s a certain feeling you get in the pit of your stomach when you’re standing on the side of a steep mountain with nowhere to go that looks good. All I can think about is how this is so stupid, how dumb I am for getting in this position, how ridiculously hard it is going to be to get out, how unsure I am if I can even get out. But I push all those thoughts out of my head, and just focus on the one thing that matters. Just keep moving forward. We then had a short bushwhack to get to a forest road, but it was on FLAT ground and basically felt like hiking on easy mode after what we just went through. We then took a connection of roads and “trails” (that didn’t really exist) to get to Big Saddle Tank. I had drank maybe a quarter liter of water all day, and was almost out, so I really needed it. The tank ended up being dry.

We collected a little snow as a precaution, but continued on toward Indian Hollow Campground. We passed another water tank on the way but I wasn’t expecting it to have anything since the last one was dry. But surprisingly Indian Hollow Trick Tank was full of great clear water. I was much relieved.

We grabbed water and continued on to the campground which is just 3 primitive sites and a pit toilet (which we planned on sleeping in cause of the cold and wind).

I was surprised to see there was a car there and people camping. Fancy Feast went to go check out the rim from this side, while I made use of the pit toilet. After taking care of business, I went over to the car people and asked if they saw my friend walk by. They said yes and asked what we were doing. After explaining the Hayduke, he mentioned doing the PCT and even unprovokingly mentioned sleeping in a pit toilet. Bingo. I didn’t even have to bring it up now. He did. I said we were planning on doing that tonight and they didn’t mind at all. They turned out to be amazing people. He had gone for the PCT fkt over a decade ago and has done a ton of wild stuff. They met on a fundraiser trip he did where he biked to every state’s high point and hiked up to it. And now they still do some crazy stuff, but have moved on to being parents. They were so genuine, cool, and nice. I wanna be them when I grow up.

After hanging out with them for a few hours, we retreated back to our pit toilet which is feeling pretty damn warm. On days like today, I’ll always reassure myself with one of my favorite mottos. Tomorrow will be better, because it has to be.

Song of the day: how big how blue how beautiful-Florence+ the machine