"It's a terrible route, and no-one should try it," says Mike Coronella. We're sitting in a burger joint in Moab, and I've just asked him what message he'd like to pass on to future Hayduke hikers. He laughs. "No, I'd tell them to do their homework. This route is not like the triple crown trails. … Continue reading Talking with Mike Coronella, the co-creator of the Hayduke Trail

5/24/16 Mileage: 45 Alternate title: rimming the Grand Canyon Sometimes you finish a trail and you're tired and your stomach hurts so  you lay on the grass for five days reading back issues of The New Yorker and at night you drag the foam mattress from your boyfriend's subaru and drop it in the dirt … Continue reading Grand Canyon bonus: rim to rim to rim

May 18 Mileage: 15 834 miles hiked Even though I sleep long and hard in the dark clear night I wake up feeling tired. A deep tired, way down in my bones. It’s the kind of exhaustion I recognize from the end of a trail. I don’t want to hike anymore. I don’t want to … Continue reading Hayduke trail day 62: Zion/Fin

May 17 Mileage: 15 819 miles hiked This section going into Zion reminds me so much of earlier sections of the Hayduke. Absurdly deep, fine sand that packs into our shoes, and orange slickrock. It’s like it’s all come full circle. We slog in the deep sand under a stormy sky in the morning (we … Continue reading Hayduke trail day 61: Deep sand to Virgin River narrows

May 16 Mileage: 13 804 miles hiked Of course my debit card is not at the post office, care of general delivery to me. That would be too simple, too easy. I call my bank- they tell me they never sent the thing, because they packaged it fedex and then realized that fedex doesn’t deliver … Continue reading Hayduke trail day 60: Touring polygamyville

May 15 Mileage: zero Why not take one last zero, two days before the end of the route? No really though, we need to get Dan’s broken phone figured out. And wait until Monday morning post office hours to get our box. Also, there’s shitty diner food to eat. And I’m really behind on my … Continue reading Hayduke trail day 59: zero in Hurricaine

May 14 Mileage: 25 791 miles hiked I dream that my house is in the upper freight container on a doublestack intermodal freight train that is hurtling down the track. I share this “house” with a bunch of people, all artists. We wear colorful clothing and live mostly off of butter cookies. We have bunkbeds … Continue reading Hayduke trail day 58: the Arizona strip

May 13 Mileage: 25 766 miles hiked I wake just before it’s light on the bench of dry grass above the bouldery wash to a great buzzing; someone is pollinating the flowering mesquite branches that hang over us. Suddenly, bats are everywhere- swooping! Swooping! Someone needs to be pollinated and someone else is pollinating and … Continue reading Hayduke trail day 57: hot miles to our cache

May 13 Mileage: 14 741 miles hiked It’s so hot at night on our little stretch of sand a few feet from the Colorado, with the bats circling overhead and the river’s mysterious nighttime splashing noises. (Wave-breakers?) I sleep with my bag flung off, sweating on my neo-air. I dream that the splashing noises are … Continue reading Hayduke trail day 56: Kanab Creek/house-sized boulders in an enchanted tropical waterpark

May 11 Mileage: 12 727 miles hiked It’s so warm in our tent on the grassy bench next to the creek that I sleep completely without a sleeping bag- our warmest night on the trail yet. While we were downclimbing pouroffs and traversing insanely steep scree slopes in Saddle Canyon yesterday we also somehow descended … Continue reading Hayduke trail day 55: slow and beautiful wins the race