Day 224 (HDT 38)

Day 222 (HDT 38): 24 miles

We started off the day with a few miles of cross country. I actually really liked it. It was pretty open grassy landscape, still with trees and sharp desert plants. But I loved the vibe of it, especially with the haunting dark clouds overhead.

When I reached the forest road that would take us to our trailhead to descend the canyon, I got cell service. I updated the weather but was more interested in catching up on a wild weekend of college football. I skimmed all the big games and box scores before downloading some podcasts to catch up.

While I was walking the road to catch up to Fancy Feast I had my phone in one hand and slipped. This was in a two track with deep divets from tires. One foot slipped down one, the other jolted forward and I knew I was going down. Thankfully, because I have cat-like reflexes, I twisted to my side so my backpack took the brunt of the fall. While doing so, I was still moving with a lot of forward momentum and ended up doing a half somersault. It’s too bad nobody was around to see. I’m sure it would have been amusing.

After the XC and roadwalk, we descended back into the canyon on Jump-up trail before connecting into the Ranger Trail. It was actually very nice trail for the lack of use it appears to get. And this canyon was stunning. After the initial descent, it was constant desert beauty. It was definitely one of my favorite days on the trail so far. This scenery with relative ease of walking on solid rock was really what I was expecting the whole time for the alternate the ranger recommended to us, not a bushwhack from hell. Even if there was no trail today, it still would’ve been 1000x easier than the route she had us do through thick vegetation.

We did pass a few dry springs that we expected to have water. This alternate we’ve been doing is totally our own so there’s no water data to go off of. Our maps show water icons and sources, but most of the time those are dry. So for this stretch we’ve been doing, we really just have to look at the water sources on our map, and hope one of them eventually has water. Yesterday we surprisingly found water at one, but today several were dry, which was surprising. I was expecting there to be some easy water because there were several spring icons and water lines really close to each other, but alas, nothing. There was a sign for a spring .5 miles off trail, but we both decided we’d have enough water until Kanab creek.

After that junction for water we skipped, Fancy Feast and I separated and didn’t reunite for a while. I was listening to some college football podcasts. I was getting pretty jacked. Eventually, I turned on a gameday playlist and started flying down the trail, just imagining how rowdy my first time back in Ohio is going to be for the Michigan game. Damn I can’t wait

About 1.5 miles before Kanab Creek canyon I saw a large clear pothole of water. I stopped and thought I’d grab a little bit. Then I decided I might as well fill up here just in case the creek is dry. It was 26 miles to the next water so I got 5 liters. Fancy Feast caught up while I was filtering water and I suggested she fill up too. And it’s a good thing we did. When we descended into Kanab Canyon, it was bone dry.

Now it probably won’t be for much longer. It’s going to rain/snow tonight and with it’s high flash flood potential, I assume it’ll get flowing pretty good.

We descended Kanab Canyon at the confluence with Lawson Canyon and Hack Canyon. This is where we hopped back on the “official” Hayduke and started to hike up Hack Canyon.

We made it a couple miles before we had to set up camp. We were looking for a good spot the whole time we were in Hack Canyon, but weren’t really seeing anything. We needed a spot that was pretty high up to avoid flash flood danger since it’s gone rain, but also not covered in cacti like most of the ground, has dirt that could hold stakes, ideally flat, and ideally have some wind protection. We ended up settling for a spot that was high up, had dirt, and barely had 2 tent spots void of cacti. It was dark so we really couldn’t see much if we kept going, and we’d only be climbing highway up so the wind would likely only get worse. As I’m typing this now the wind is pretty strong and is gusting sand into my tent through the bug netting. It’s going to be a pretty rough night if it stays windy when it starts raining. It’s probably going to be a pretty shitty night tonight, but what a great day.

Song of the day: miss Jackson (remix)