Thursday May 25, 23.9mi/38.5km

AZT at Buffalo Trick Tank (537.5/8400ft) to Dog Lake (558.3/8785ft) (AZ) +3.1mi GPS correction

We left our perfect little camp spot in the trees at 6:45am and hiked thru the morning light.

There wasn’t much exiting or notable today, just heaps of nice scenery. There was a burn area from the 2006 Warm Fire, and the aspens seem to have taken over.

Aspen tunnel!

Shadow and I hiked together for the first hour, and we paused when he heard a loud noise. Deer!

I stopped for a brief break at the Murray trailhead, and Shadow kept going. The bathroom was still locked from the winter, and the bear box was empty (often have water or snacks), so there wasn’t much reason to linger.

After a couple miles, we stopped at our first water source for the day. These are manmade setups that collect water using a big concrete platform, and funnel it into a square pool. Neat!

Spelling errors on signs always amuse me. GNCP? Grand Canyon National Park is GCNP!

I almost stepped on a tiny snake, he was trying to stay warm up here at 8600ft elevation.

Eventually the burn area ended and the green trees returned. The Kaibab plateau is beautiful.

Because of the high elevation, there were still 5 or 6 little patches of snow still lingering. They were super easy to just walk across, but still a little surprising to see.

It’s a green tunnel!

This little lizard posed for me on a log. It didn’t have a long tail like all the other lizards I’ve seen, so it must be a different species.

I crossed paths with the hiker named Malto again, whom we met last week coming out of Bryce. He is completing this section of the Arizona trail, before heading home. We chatted for quite awhile, and eventually I parted ways, I still had a mile to go for our lunch spot. We had lunch at the Telephone Hill trailhead, which had a nice fence to sit against.

It was warm in the sun, but a little chilly when a cloud would pass by. It felt good to sit and relax, but Shadow wanted to do 13 more miles, so off we went. Hiking kept me warm at this high elevation.

For the rest of the day we paralleled a paved highway. It’s a seasonal road (closed for the winter) that leads only to the park entrance, so there were almost no cars on it.

These high elevation meadows were cool to experience.

Our next water source was at an overflowing pond. I think all the water sources up here are running high because of the snowmelt. Shadow was napping on the shoreline when I got there.

I decided to do a bit of the same!

After a nice long break at the pond, we spent the rest of the afternoon hiking through high elevation meadows.

Shadow hikes faster than me, and after a while I could barely see him in the distance.

More alpine meadows! The sunshine made it look warm but it was not….maybe 65F/18C.

I arrived to our planned campsite after 6pm, which also had another one of these cool little water tanks.

Shadow had been there for a while and already set up his tarp in the meadow. It was pretty windy, so I decided to setup my tent in the trees where it was more sheltered.

It was an unexpectedly long day of 24 miles, and my ankle started hurting, but now tomorrow we have a very short day of only 15 miles which will feel very nice!

Wednesday May 24, 3.9mi/6.3km

Jacob Lake (533.6/7745ft) to AZT at Buffalo Trick Tank (537.5/8400ft) (AZ)

It was another relaxing morning, I slept in until 7am and started planning my next hike and downloading maps and info. After a quick breakfast of grapefruit, toast and tea, we went back to town. Shadow had a couple more things to buy, and I wanted to check out the Heritage House.

It’s an old house in Kanab, built in 1894, and home to a couple prominent local families over the years.

It had tons of architectural details that you’d only see on old houses. The stair railing posts were carved into beehives, as Utah was promoted as the beehive state (industrious and teamwork).

The attic windows looked like eyes staring down. The top triangle in the roof is supposed to be the same eye symbol that’s on a $1 bill. Neat!

The inside had fancy colored glass windows and old stone fireplaces.

One of the men who owned the house was a physician, so the desk and bookshelf contained many interesting titles.

There were several bedrooms, most of which had many photos of the man’s large family – he had 6 wives and 42 children.

It’s a national historical building!

After the free hour-long tour, I picked up Shadow from the store, and we went and got ice cream sundaes at the local drugstore’s soda fountain.

Kanab has a nice walkable downtown, only 6 blocks long, and some of the businesses had punny signs.

We drove to the house and finished packing, I got a final shower, and Deena very generously gave us a ride back to the trail, 45 minutes away. We started hiking at 5pm, in the beautiful ponderosa pine forest.

After 4 miles, we stopped to camp for the night near a pond and a water tank.

It felt so good to be camping in a real forest again! Nice soft ground with pine needles, no sand, and no wind… perfect.

Two more days until we enter Grand Canyon National Park!

Tuesday May 23, 0.0mi/0.0km

Kanab, UT

What a relaxing day! I slept in a bed, and didn’t wake up until almost 7:30. When I went downstairs Deena and Steve were already having their coffee, and getting ready for their workday. I made french toast for breakfast, and then Shadow and I drove into downtown Kanab, about a mile away. Our first stop was the post office, where I had 3 boxes! We had shipped extra food from the last town, I had some leukotape from Amazon, and I had ordered new shoes. They are definitely not my preferred color, but it’s all I could get that quickly.

It’s the same exact model, and the tread on the old trail runners looks completely worn off.

New grippy shoes will be great for the upcoming Grand Canyon section, which will have more steep trails and rock-hopping. Next we did our food shopping, buying 7 days of food to get the 110 miles from Jacob lake to South Rim.

Across the street was the local hiking gear store, so we checked it out.

I kinda needed a new UV shirt, but they didn’t have anything in my size, so I’ll make the current one work for a few more weeks. We also stopped at the dollar store, and I bought a $3 inner tube.

There is a crossing of the Little Colorado River, or LCR, which usually requires a waist-deep ford. I’m not tall, so the tube gives me a backup plan.

After all our shopping, we grabbed lunch at one of the few local restaurants that was open on a Tuesday, Adria’s.

It was a nice restaurant inside, but with a really small menu. Once I eliminated all the beef dishes, there were only 2 options left…sigh.

We drove back to the house and unpacked all our stuff. I spread out my food to make sure I wasn’t forgetting anything.

The reusable shopping bags had a great slogan! “Abra Kanabra…. magically unspoiled”.

The store tried to give us old-school plastic throwaway bags, which was sad….it’s 2023. I spent the rest of the afternoon reading a book about western water issues, and exploring our hosts’ wonderful bookshelf.

Dinner was great, pasta with marinara sauce and lots of fresh vegetables, plus a salad and fresh bread. Everything tastes better when you’re used to eating dehydrated food and bars everyday! I had a relaxing evening of doing laundry, and more reading. A perfect zero day!

Monday May 22, 22.0mi/35.4km

Winter Road Trailhead (516.5/6460ft) to Jacob Lake (533.6/7745ft) (AZ) +2.4mi GPS correction, +2.5mi roadwalk to JacobLake

Shadow left camp as I was waking up, and I packed up and left from my in-trail campsite by 7:15am. The weather was perfect and my backpack was light, since my food is almost gone. It was a very enjoyable morning of hiking on the Arizona Trail. I met a group of three Arizona Trail northbound hikers, who would finish later today. It was fun to chat with Piñata & Mudskipper, and get some information about the trail ahead. As I hiked on, I was impressed by the signage, infrastructure, and maps all along the trail.

This section of the Hayduke is on the Arizona trail for about 65 miles (105km), and it’s up higher on the Kaibab Plateau.

Even the little trailside posts show the Kaibab Plateau region, along with a funny looking squirrel.

I came to the junction with the Navajo trail, and paused for a minute to consider my water situation. It was only 10 miles to Highway 89A (my exit point), so I skipped the half-mile to Joe’s reservoir (which was probably dry anyway), and continued on.

The past week has been weird weather, the summer monsoon pattern had started early. But today had no building thunderstorms, just some puffy clouds.

I entered a burn area, which was neat to see. New life growing in the absence of the old trees.

After the burn area, it returned to the usual ponderosa pine forest.

It was such a nice trail, weaving around a ridgeline for hours.

As I approached the highway, the signs became even more impressive. A hand painted sign with a Kaibab squirrel!

I got to the exit point of the trail at 2:30pm, and did a 2.5 mile dirt roadwalk to the little resort village of Jacob’s Lake.

They had a small store, restaurant, bar, and hotel. I bought a bag of kettle chips and a Root beer, and settled into a big comfy chair by the window. The decor reminded me of a southwest version of the Adirondack Loj.

I texted Shadow, who apparently was sitting at the bar, so I finished my snack and joined him there. I ordered a milkshake, chicken sandwich, and fries…the first two were great but the fries were terrible. Like they had been re-warmed in a fryer at least 3 times, and very dry. Gross. Shadow has arranged with a trail angel in Kanab for us to stay, and Deena picked us up at 5pm. It’s like a 45 minute drive to Kanab, and I was very surprised at such a generous offer. She drove us to her house, where we met Steve, and also the 3 friendly dogs. Some pizza & salad for dinner, along with some great conversation, rounded out the perfect day!

Sunday May 21, 25.7mi/41.4km

Start of Buckskin Gulch (492.9/5300ft) (UT) to Winter Road Trailhead (516.5/6460ft) (AZ) +2.1mi GPS correction

We keep camping in less-than-ideal spots, and therefore wake up with wet tents. We spent an hour drying our stuff, and didn’t leave until 8am!

The hike down upper Buckskin Gulch was surprisingly nice. I was afraid we would have to walk in the wash with the slippery mud, but instead we found cattle trails the entire way down the canyon.

We did have to cross the wash a couple dozen times, which was not difficult but required some care to not slip and fall in the oozy mess.

I love spring in the desert, there are wildflowers everywhere.

We hiked the upper Buckskin Gulch for almost 3 hours and it was a nice cruise-y morning. Towards the end of that section I saw a guy up on a cliff. I was a little worried for him, until later I saw that he was using a rope and being belayed by his partner. I had no idea there was sport climbing in this area!

We got to the Buckskin Gulch Trailhead at 11am and took a break in the shade of the bathrooms. It wasn’t hot, maybe 75F/24C but the sun felt intense.

The next six miles of trail requires a payment for day hiking, and we were all prepared to put our $6 per person in the deposit box. But the box was broken and clearly had not been used in a long time.

It was very strange. I don’t like not paying my fair share, but the only other option they gave was to pay using a website….Which of course was never going to work in the middle of nowhere with no phone signal. We continued on, hiking through lower Buckskin Gulch.

The scenery was dramatically different from upper Buckskin Gulch.

This lizard was hilarious. He seemed to be posing for photos, and then at one point he started doing push-ups. Ha!

Towards the end of Buckskin Gulch, the canyon became dramatically narrower.

And then it became a slot canyon!

Shadow was hiking in the lead. Since the wash had become wet last night, everything was slippery mud and difficult to walk in.

There was even some quicksand too, which made a fun added challenge.

There were a couple of day hikers that seemed to be stuck at a deep pool of water. So we went first, demonstrating how to do it and then I threw my hiking pole to the girl so she could get across.

After that point the canyon split, the main Buckskin Gulch continued straight ahead for another 20 miles, through North America’s longest slot canyon. We turned right, and went up Wire Pass. It was another narrow slot Canyon but only half a mile long.

We stopped for a lunch break in the shade of a short cliff, and then hiked the last mile to the trailhead parking lot.

There is a long dry stretch in this section of trail it’s about 20 miles between water sources. So I went through the parking lot to ask people for a liter of water, and this very generous couple offered us water, ice cold Gatorade, and even made us turkey and cheese sandwiches! Amazing!

They were super fun to talk to, they’re on a long road trip around the Southwest before they move back east to their home state of Kentucky. Thanks Sam and Kate!

We had a road walk for 30 minutes, and we left Utah and entered Arizona.

The next 65 miles of the Hayduke is on the Arizona Trail.

Both shadow and I had been here before, but we thought it would be fun to get photos at the Northern terminus monument again.

The Arizona Trail starts off with a nice 1500ft/450m climb up to a plateau.

From the top of the plateau, I could see back to the north and east where we had been all morning.

Because it’s a popular national scenic trail, the AZT is well maintained and easy to hike.

We came across our first water source for the day, and it was a complicated little water catchment system. I filled three liters so I would have enough for dinner and some of tomorrow until the next water source.

It was another 6 miles until our planned camp spot, which would make a *very* long day, but the trail was very easy and the miles flew by.

Some clouds moved in and in the distance I could hear thunder. The storm fortunately stayed in the distance but it still provided a nice rainbow.

With our late 8am start, and a super long day of 26 miles, we didn’t get to our camp spot until 8:30pm. My usual ankle was getting pretty sore, so even though the camp spot wasn’t that good, I did not want to hike any further. Shadow was already setup in his shelter, and there weren’t any other flat spots around, so I did the usual desperate strategy of camping in the trail. I’m sure no one will come by in the next 9 hours and I’m too tired to really care, haha. Tomorrow is a town day!

Saturday May 20, 20.0mi/32.2km

Bullrush Gorge (472.9/6180ft) to Start of Buckskin Gulch (492.9/5300ft) (UT)

Since we camped in a less-than-ideal campsite (bottom of a valley, not under trees, etc), we both woke up to wet tents. It was 6:45am and the sun wouldn’t hit us for at least an hour, so we packed up most of our stuff and walked down the canyon to a sunny spot to dry our stuff. Yard sale!

After 30 minutes of drying, we packed up again and had an uneventful walk down Park Wash. Occasionally there was a dirt road thru the wash.

This water source was a nice surprise, and I thought it was a pretty clever use of an old tractor tire.

Cows were everywhere. They usually moooved out of the way, but these blocked our path.

Hi cows!

There was an old “cowboy shack” nearby so I went to check that out.

It was a beautiful morning for hiking, and we fortunately found a cattle track, which was better than walking in the soft sand of the wash.

Further down, the wash was easier to walk with firmer sand.

I loved seeing this old-timey windmill. It was attached to a motor to pump water to a basin for the cows.

The landscape was surprisingly green in this area.

Our dirt road joined a bigger dirt road, and I had to take a photo of the junction. Who names these things?!?

We stopped for lunch at another nice green area, and watched the puffy clouds get bigger.

All afternoon it was a nice easy roadwalk, thru increasingly cloudy skies.

I heard thunder and looked behind me…yikes. I walked faster.

Ahead of me still looked pretty nice.

We had roadwalking for about 3 hours, with the sound of thunder echoing around the valley.

Eventually the entire sky was covered in thunderclouds and there was lightning, wind, and a few drops of rain. No photos during that chaos, it was a challenge just to stay warm. Around 4:30pm we crossed the big paved highway 89, which leads to Kanab.

Most Hayduke hikers would exit here and hitch to town, but we are hiking thru another 2 days to the resort village of Jacob’s Lake, AZ. Shadow has a friend in Kanab who is picking us up there, which is really generous of her, it’s like a 45 minute drive!

We crossed the highway and went thru the huge wildlife fence, which had a complicated latch mechanism.

We camped a half mile later, at the start of Buckskin Gulch.

We setup our tents and had dinner, and then an hour later, the dry wash became wet! I heard flowing water, and emerged from my tent to see the leading edge of a small flood coming down the wash. The rainstorm had been in the mountains 4 hours ago, and the runoff had finally arrived down here. Amazing!

Tomorrow is our last day in Utah, then it’s on to Arizona!

Friday May 19, 24.6mi/39.6km

Under-the-Rim-Trail @ Dixie NF border (alt 33.2/7760ft) to Bullrush Gorge (472.9/6180ft) (UT) +1.6mi Rainbow Point

I woke up after a great night’s sleep, it was a perfect spot to camp in the trees. We left just before 7am and hiked thru the morning light.

We were still on the Under-the-Rim-trail for another 8 miles, and every time it crested a ridge I had a great view of the rim. The white stuff in the foreground is sand, the faraway white is snow!

We crossed out and back into the national park briefly, and the trail had these strange vertical ladders to get over the fence.

Slowly we climbed up toward Rainbow Point…

And further up…

As I neared the top I could look down on the leftover snow patches.

And there were even some tiny snow patches next to the trail!

It felt cold up at 9000ft, but the views were superb.

I caught up to Shadow, and we made the short side trip to Rainbow Point.

Someone had made a couple of tiny snowmen on the overlook railing, ha!

The sign said we were at 9,115ft / 2778m elevation, that’s the highest I’ve been on the Hayduke.

We had a long break on a bench, and Shadow even made a coffee. There were quite a few people around.

We checked out the overlook, and it had views to the northeast and northwest.

After 45 minutes we departed, and hiked back downhill, this time on the Riggs Springs Trail. It traveled through a burn area, and along with the clouds, gave it an eerie feeling.

The view to the south.

We descended for an hour and then had lunch. It was threatening to storm but no rain came.

After we packed up from lunch, we had another hour of hiking to get to the park boundary. It rained briefly for 10 minutes along the way, umbrella to the rescue! Of course at the park exit, we had another fence to climb over.

We passed a strange concrete object, which shockingly had nice clear water in it. I didn’t need any water, but as we were pondering the next water source, another hiker walked up!

His name is Malto, and he had hiked the Arizona trail, connected it to the Hayduke, and is planning on hiking home to Durango (CO). Cool. We chatted for a bit about upcoming water sources, then continued on to the trailhead.

The next hour was on a roadwalk, which was nice. Someone had hung a piece of cow skeleton from a tree. Creepy.

We passed by two water sources, both of which were not listed on our guide. The first was a piped spring!

The second was a metal tank, which had very clear and cold water.

At the end of the roadwalk we entered Bullrush Hollow….

…. which became Bullrush Gorge.

It was a nice gorge, surrounded by colorful cliffs and easy walking in a dry wash.

We found a campsite where the Bullrush Gorge joined the Park Wash, and set up away from the floodplain.

It was also near these very fragrant wildflowers!

Today was a fairly relaxed day, tomorrow should be even more so, since we are limited to 20 miles (there is a 6-mile-long no camping section after that).

Thursday May 18, 23.1mi/37.2km

Tropic town (alt 12.3/6300ft) to Under-the-Rim-Trail @ Dixie NF border (alt 33.2/7760ft) (UT) + 2.2mi GPS correction

We left the Red Ledges inn at 8am and began our 3mile roadwalk. It was a perfect temperature for hiking.

After an hour we arrived at the trailhead for the Tropic Trail, we entered Bryce National Park!

At first there were no people, but that quickly changed as soon as I got to the Red Rock and hoodoos.

Apparently this is supposed to look like a queen.

More cool hoodoo formations.

As I climbed higher towards the rim, I started to get a sense of the size of the park.

I thought these hoodoos were like the three stooges.

I finished the climb and got to the rim, the view from Sunrise point was great!

15 minutes later we were at Sunset point.

This little tree was stubbornly hanging on, haha.

Shadow trying to look like one of the hundreds of tourists.

There were so many hoodoos!

I had to get my own photo.

I think this was taken from a spot called Inspiration point.

More gratuitous hoodoo photos.

We hiked on a nice trail over to Bryce point.

The sign says we were at 8300 feet (2500m) elevation!

The little lookout point was swarming with people, and I thought the clouds gave the valley an interesting look.

The hoodoos as seen from Bryce Point.

As soon as we left the rim, and got on the Under-the-Rim-trail, there were no more people.

It was just quiet and easy hiking on a nice trail.

After an hour, we came to a little spot called the Hat Shop.

All these formations looked like a ton of hats perched on top of the pillars. These two were especially pointy.

We had lunch on the ridgetop at the hat shop, and it was still a perfect temperature with no thunderstorms. After lunch we descended to Yellow Creek.

The rest of the day we hiked on the Under-the-Rim-trail, which was easy walking with great views.

We would descend into a valley, then climb up to a ridge, and repeat. From the top of the ridges, I could see the rim with more hoodoo formations.

We were up at an elevation of almost 8,000 feet, so there were big trees up here.

Our final climb for the day was up Swamp Canyon Creek.

At the top of that climb, we hiked through a burn area for a half-hour.

In order to legally camp, we needed to get to the boundary with the Dixie National Forest. As soon as we got to the gate at the park boundary, we started looking for camping.

And within 5 minutes we found a spot under some nice huge pine trees and sheltered from the wind. Perfect!

Tomorrow we will continue on the Under-the-Rim-trail, which will rejoin the Hayduke in a couple miles. (today was an alternate route, to see more of Bryce NP).

Wednesday May 17, 0mi/0km

Tropic (UT)

Today was just a very relaxing day. I slept in until 7am, sauntered over to the motel lobby for the free continental breakfast, and then picked up my maps at the post office. I made a quick stop at the general store for some snacks, I love how compact this town is, everything is less than a 5 minute walk.

Back at the motel room, we did various gear repairs and cleaning (this trail is very hard on gear!) while watching episodes of Seinfeld, South park, Archer, and old 90s movies like Clueless and Jurassic Park. Shadow bought a new z-rest sleeping pad, and like most people he cuts off the extra sections. So I was gifted a new sitting pad!

I walked over to the pizza place to get lunch, and they had a sign with puns….my favourite.

I had a great lunch of salad, a hoodoo ale, and fish n chips.

After lunch I bought a few remaining items from the grocery/general store, and then we mailed our extra food & gear ahead to the next town, Kanab UT. I spent a few hours making various phone calls while doing laundry, and before I knew it, it was dinnertime! Shadow and I went to Rustler’s, a western themed spot with pub food. It was delicious, but the service was sloooowww. Eventually we got back to the motel room and did some final packing while more movies played. Tomorrow we head out early, as there is limited camping for the first 30 miles. Bryce National Park requires a permit to camp in the park, but to get a permit you need to have a bear canister. Since we don’t have a canister, and don’t have a way to return a borrowed one, we need to camp in the nearby Dixie National Forest where no such rules exist.
Great zero day!

Tuesday May 16, 21.4mi/34.4km

Paria River @Deer Creek Cyn (429.4/5160ft) to Skutumpah Road (441.7/5960ft) (UT) +9.1mi roadwalk to Tropic town

It’s a town day! We started off at 6am with headlamps, which we only needed for maybe 5 minutes.

The sunrise colors in the Paria River Canyon were pretty glorious.

Shadow usually hiked up ahead, but both of us are motivated and excited for town food.

After about 4 miles, we turned off into Sheep creek canyon, still heading upstream. The creek was very twisty and made some deep corners in the rock cliffs.

I hiked up Sheep creek for 2 hours, and it was easy, and pretty soon I turned off into Willis Creek Narrows.

The canyon became skinnier….

And pretty soon it was just 3m/10ft wide!

It widened briefly, and I saw a group of four horseback riders heading in the opposite direction. I have no idea how they fit thru this narrow canyon!

The textured wall of Willis Creek Narrows were fun to touch.

There was a surprising amount of muddy water running down the canyon, most photos I’ve seen had a dry canyon.

More cool narrows photos!

As I climbed upstream, the canyon walls were getting shorter.

Which was fortunate, because I soon hit this obstacle and had to scramble out.

As soon as I scrambled out, I was at the trailhead, and a dirt road. From there, it was a long dirt roadwalk (9mi) to the highway.

At least the views of Grand Staircase-Escalante were pretty epic.

Halfway thru the roadwalk I passed a junction. Getting closer!

I saw some weird things along the road, including a shipping container “house”, someone watering the desert trying to farm, and this weird sculpture.

I arrived to the highway at 1pm, and then hitched the 5mi to Tropic, as it felt too dangerous to walk that 65mph road. Shadow had arrived a couple hours ahead of me (he skipped the Willis Narrows), and had gotten us a motel room at the Red Ledges Inn. Sweet.

My first stop was food! I ordered a bison burger and fries at the Sinclair convenience store, which were only mediocre. At least the two milkshakes were great. Shadow showed up (it’s a tiny town), and we walked over to the motel. I showered, and we got an early dinner at “IDK barbecue” which was really fantastic. After an attempt at grocery shopping (I’ll have to finish tomorrow), we relaxed in the motel room and watched free movies.

Tomorrow is my first Zero day (zero miles hiking) on the Hayduke, I’m looking forward to doing nothing!