March 31 Mileage: 20 188 miles hiked There’s a high route that avoids the Dirty Devil river- it’s 4 miles longer and “safer if the river is high”. It’s noon, we’ve just had lunch at a secret pothole up a side canyon in Fiddler’s cove canyon that Dan found- Dan is very good at finding … Continue reading Hayduke trail day 14: the Dirty Devil River

March 30 Mileage: 8 168 miles hiked Most of the day is spent sitting in the gravel on the side of a lonely seldom-trafficked highway amongst windswept sagebrush hills watching the storms move towards us, over us, and away. We’re halfway back to the Hayduke from Hanksville, where we started this morning. There is one … Continue reading Hayduke day 13: the longest hitch

March 29 Mileage: zero A wild windstorm blows in during the night and rattles the motel and when we wake it’s ice-cold and the forecast calls for freezing rain in the desert everywhere. We’d planned on zeroing in 2 days when we get back here for our next resupply but it’ll be sunny then and … Continue reading Hayduke day 12: oops, a zero in Hanksville

March 28 Mileage: 15 160 miles hiked Cowboy camping has never been nicer. Balmy and warm, in the sand, burbling water noise… I wake up before it’s light to make tea, determined to fix my habit of sleeping in late so that we don’t have to resort to “alarms”. 45 minutes later we’re headed up … Continue reading Hayduke day 11: oops, no water ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

March 27 Mileage: 20 145 miles hiked I hardly sleep, since there’s an alarm set. I drift in and out of wakefulness all night, aware of every sound and movement. How do people relax when they know they’ve set an alarm? You’re going to be startled out of a deep sleep, when you least expect … Continue reading Hayduke trail day 10: Dark Canyon

March 26 Mileage: 18 125 miles hiked Dan wakes me at 4 a.m. “Carrot! Snow!” He’s punching snow off the sides of the tent, lifting the fabric from our faces, righting a pole that’s fallen down. There hadn’t been much in the way of clouds when we camped, and we put up the tent mostly … Continue reading Hayduke trail day 9: slow miles, hard miles

March 25 Mileage: 18 107 miles hikes All day yesterday as we walked up Salt Creek I craned my neck, looking for ruins in the rock high above, and didn’t see any. And then, partway through the morning today, when the sun is just beginning to warm us and I’m almost ready to take off … Continue reading Hayduke Trail day 8: so many ruins, so little time

March 24 Mileage: 14 89 miles hiked Thousands of years ago some chill humans found a cool year-round non-alkaline stream running through a canyon-type place all rustling with leaves and lots of caves to live in. They stayed, they migrated away, they stayed, they came in waves, they pooped and fucked and built granaries and … Continue reading Hayduke trail day 7: Salt Creek is a place I would like to live forever

March 23 Mileage: 4 89 miles hiked I wake at midnight. Fuck. Fuck!!! I yank open the zipper on my sleeping bag, run barefoot out of the cave into the black, wailing night and scratch a cathole in the sand at the last possible second. Why did I drink those three liters of alkaline water, … Continue reading Hayduke trail day 6: 2 sick 2 hike

March 22 Mileage: 20 85 miles hiked There is no sleeping. There is only… The Wind. The wind won’t stop beating the walls of the shelter WHAP WHAP WHAP WHAP WHAP and it’s absolutely impossible to get any rest. At 2 a.m. I look over at Dan in the grey moonlight and he’s just as … Continue reading Hayduke trail day 5: on the roof