Monday May 15, 24.7mi/39.8km

Hackberry Canyon (404.7/5360ft) to Paria River @Deer Creek Cyn (429.4/5160ft) (UT)

We got started at 7am, and the the very first thing that happened was I stepped in deep quicksand. It was up to my knee and I immediately pulled myself out, Shadow tested the depth with his hiking pole.

The rest of the morning hiking down Hackberry Canyon was much less eventful. Just walking in ankle deep water.

Eventually the canyon walls turned from white rock to red rock.

The green Cottonwood trees combined with the red rocks really made for a dazzling color combination.

We passed by the Watson cabin, an historic shelter that is being restored by the BLM.

I loved that cacti were growing on the roof.

The inside of the cabin was small, so we took a snack break outside where there was more room.

The views heading down Hackberry Canyon continued to surprise me.

The lower part of Hackberry Canyon became much narrower, and it was much easier walking without the brush or boulders.

And it felt so cozy!

Pretty soon I came to the end of Hackberry Canyon and emerged at a trailhead. The note about the dead cows really helped explain the terrible smell I detected a few miles back.

I walked along Cottonwood Creek for a couple miles, and then came to the Paria River. I hadn’t seen Shadow or his footprints, so I decided to wait for him at this junction. Coincidentally he was waiting for me nearby, and neither of us realized it for 45 minutes, ha!

After we reunited and had lunch, we hiked up the muddy Paria River.

The rocks in the canyon were much more red. And the big storm cloud building to the north caught my attention as well.

A couple miles up the Paria River, we ran into a kid named Levi. He is on a 4-year transcontinental journey from his home in Susanville (CA) to the Atlantic ocean. He has a small team of horses and mules and is learning a ton of skills along the way. Sounds pretty cool!

We continued up the Paria River all afternoon.

I’m not sure what kind of bird made these tracks, but it must be pretty huge.

And then we came across the strangest object I’ve ever seen on a trail….a cow skull, spraypainted blue.

Who brings a can of spraypaint many miles into the wilderness? And what happened to the cow? So many questions. We moved on. Most of the hiking was right on the riverbank, on nice firm sand. Occasionally though a trail would cut across one of the riverbends as a “shortcut”. Except these shortcuts were full of soft sand that was terrible to walk in, and they didn’t save any time or energy.

We crossed and re-crossed the Paria River probably 50 times. It was barely shin deep, so pretty easy to cross, but it looked like chocolate milk so you couldn’t see the bottom.

Every once in awhile there was a unique little rock formation in the river, this one looked like a toadstool.

We had hiked up the Paria River for 13 miles, and called it a day at 6pm near Deer Creek, which was a nice water source.

Shadow and I discussed plans for tomorrow, since it’s only 19 miles to the town of Tropic (12mi on trail, and 7 on roads). We decided to hike all the way to town, arriving probably at 2pm. That’s pretty late in the day to get everything done, so we will take a zero day the next day to fully relax in town.

Sunday May 14, 25.3mi/40.7km

Dog Flat Plateau (380.6/5840ft) to Hackberry Canyon (404.7/5360ft) (UT) +1.1mi detour around slot canyon

It had rained overnight, and we packed up our wet tents and started our roadwalk at 6:45am. It looked like a beautiful morning.

The sky behind us didn’t look as welcoming, good thing we weren’t walking that direction!

It was almost 9 miles of easy hiking to get to Grosvenor Arch, and we had some pretty good views along the way at the highpoints. Looking back to the east:

And looking ahead to the west:

I hiked down the hill and caught up to Shadow, who was 10 minutes ahead of me. There was a little picnic area at the trailhead, and he had already exploded his pack and started drying his stuff.

I did the same thing and pretty soon we had a full-on yard sale! There was even a long-drop toilet, and a trash can, so we emptied out all of our food trash and lightened our packs. I strolled over to the Grosvenor Arch to check it out.

It was only 10:30am, so we got back on the roadwalk and headed to the next section of the Hayduke. There were a ton of cows along the way. Hi cows!!

We got to the Round Valley trailhead at noon and had lunch. I signed us into the register and saw a few other Haydukers, one of them was just one day ahead of us.

After lunch we hiked down the Round Valley wash to the slot Canyon.

We dropped into the slot Canyon and got past the first obstacle….

The second drop looked much higher and steeper. The guidebook and other sources say there is a log here to assist with the descent, and sometimes there is a rope too. Neither of those things existed, and we couldn’t figure out how to get down the 2nd drop.

So we reversed our steps and climbed back out of the slot Canyon, and saw that the sky had turned very dark with thunderstorms. Yikes, not a good time to be in a slot canyon with potential flash floods!

So we found a detour around the slot canyon, which traveled high above on the canyon rim.

The view down into the slot Canyon was impressive.

After a mile, we took a side canyon, and descended into the main slot canyon. It worked much easier than I anticipated, and there was very minimal brush or scrambling.

Once we were back in the bottom of the main canyon it was pretty open and wide.

We spent all afternoon hiking down Hackberry Canyon, about 9 miles in total.

The rock and the cliffs were so cool looking and multi-colored, it kinda reminded me of Muley Twist Canyon from last week.

The canyon weaved back and forth for miles and it was quite a sight.

Eventually Hackberry Canyon opened up a little wider, and some sunlight came through. It was a little hot.

We came to the spot where there was supposed to be a spring, and it was dry. No water. So we just kept walking until we started seeing greener plants and cottonwood trees, a good signal for water.

Half a mile later, Hackberry Canyon had a small flowing stream in it, and we filled up our bottles. Since it was 6pm, we also decided to stop and camp. After setting up and making dinner, I checked my phone and realized we had hiked 25 miles today! It’s pretty unusual on the Hayduke to do more than 20miles, since most of the terrain is rough and/or requires navigation. A good day!

Happy mother’s Day!

Saturday May 13, 25.6mi/41.2km

Last Chance Creek Canyon (355.7/4640ft) to Dog Flat Plateau (380.6/5840ft) (UT) + 0.7mi Paradise Slot Alt.

We were hiking up Last Chance Creek at 6:45am, and followed it all morning. It was nice seeing water again. Little waterfalls!

Eventually the canyon became greener, the cottonwood trees were growing everywhere, this water must be perennial.

For about a mile the canyon narrowed and the cool rock walls returned.

But mostly it was an easy walk up a dry wash, with the intermittent stream making an appearance.

Shadow demonstrating how to sidestep the slippery mud, which sometimes would catch us by surprise. It was infrequent, but often enough that I was using mental energy to avoid it.

Just after lunch we found this huge rock overhang that kinda made a cave. It was nice to get out of the sun, and also fill our water bottles in the nearby trickle.

About a mile later, we came to a junction and decided to try the Yellow Paradise alternate route, which goes thru a slot canyon. It started off easy …

But soon it required some ducking under short rocks …

And climbing up short 6ft/2m ledges.

Looking back on the slot we had just climbed out of.

After a half mile, the slot appeared to come to an end.

This was unexpected, since the guidebook info from Jamal Green’s “Across Utah” site (a wonderful resource!) described this alternate as connecting thru, and rejoining the main Hayduke. But with no other info, and finding no obvious ways to climb out, we backtracked and exited the slot canyon. We made a shortcut detour back to the main Hayduke, which was on a roadwalk for the rest of the day.

The afternoon thunderstorms were building, and I could hear thunder. Cool clouds though!

At a road junction, I was reminded how close we were to the end of this section, at Grosvenor Arch! (10 miles away).

The clouds became darker, and for the first time on the Hayduke, I felt a few raindrops. I even got out my umbrella!

A mile later we found a campsite nestled in the trees, to block the wind. It’s one of the few non-sandy campsites we’ve had, and I like it already. There are some cow pies scattered nearby, and I hear a cow in the distance, but I think it will be a quiet relaxing night.

Friday May 12, 24.5mi/39.4km

Rogers Canyon (331.9/4560ft) to Last Chance Creek Canyon (355.7/4640ft) (UT) + 0.7mi GPS correction

Another nice day for hiking! It seems the weather is always perfect out here in Utah springtime. This was our view as we started off at 6:45am.

The terrible rockiness and brush of Monday/Rogers Canyon soon ended, and we cruised on a nice gravel wash.

After a couple miles we turned and went up Navajo canyon. It was easy walking on a nice firm gravel/dirt surface. No soft sand here!

It started off as a really wide valley…

…and then soon narrowed to a proper canyon.

Walking in the piles of shale was interesting.

Shadow almost stepped on a rattlesnake, this little guy was not happy about our presence.

There was a very short 30-minute section of boulder scrambling, which was slow going but thankfully it was over quickly.

At the end of the boulder section was one final obstacle, it wasn’t difficult once we figured out the puzzle, but we had to search for the exit for a little while.

We climbed up out of Navajo canyon and had lunch at the top of the climb, on a little dirt road. Right after lunch we descended into Reese Canyon. There was an old 2-track road that descended into Reese Canyon.

And pretty soon we were in the canyon floor.

Reese canyon was enjoyable walking on gravel, and not much notable happened. Just 3 hours of walking downhill and a few neat rock formations.

We left Reese Canyon and turned to go up Last Chance Canyon, and at the junction was this creepy old trailer. In the middle of nowhere!

There was supposed to be a water source at the junction of the two canyons, but it was dry. So we hiked up the canyon, hoping to find water on our way. We stopped and filled a liter at this cool dripping moss.

But that took forever and we soon found a big pothole to fill from. There was definitely more water as we walked upstream, and the sand was frequently damp. Some canine had left prints in it!

It was easy walking in Last Chance Canyon, except occasionally there was a couple steps of slippery mud. I quickly got used to identifying the trouble spots and mostly could avoid them.

Shadow found a swimming hole! It looked murky.

We walked up canyon until 6pm, and found a nice sandy bench to camp on.

Hopefully the miles keep coming easily like today’s 4-canyon day!

Thursday May 11, 20.4mi/32.8km

Below Fiftymile Bench (313.5/4860ft) to Rogers Canyon (331.9/4560ft) (UT) +2.0mi GPS correction

We had an early 6:30am start to the day, since there was a big 2500ft climb up to Fiftymile Bench. It looked big from where we were camped just below it.

The morning temperature was perfect for hiking uphill, a nice 50F/10C. It was on a dirt road but still slow. The view halfway up was great – everything we had already hiked was visible – The Escalante river, the waterpocket fold, the Henry mountains.

Dirt road hiking is nice, it’s just like a wide trail.

The climb continued and it seemed we were aiming for this gap in the cliff, it looked so improbable.

And of course that was the route, the road degraded to a singletrack trail, and went right thru that gap. On the hike up I saw the strangest piece of trash, a half-full bag of sidewalk salt.

We got to the top just after 9am and then the trail disappeared – time to hike across the sage bush plateau! It was flat walking, but slow due to weaving our way thru all the sage. After an hour we arrived at a neat little cabin, and our only water source for the day.

The water was piped from an underground spring into a big trough, it was pretty good.

There was a main cabin, and a shed.

And it was surrounded by this cool aspen forest.

And there was even a picnic table! Shadow and I were both so excited. We took a nice long break at the table.

After the cabin we had another hour of walking thru the sage bush, it was slow but I found a cattle trail to follow, and that helped.

And then we began our descent into Monday Canyon. It started off as a wash…

And after some very vegetated hiking, we were in a wider wash.

Shadow looking thru a window in the rocks.

The canyon deepened, and at one point it became so choked with boulders that we had to scramble up a bank and walk on a shelf just above. Slow miles, but good views.

The hiking would alternate between easy walking….

…and boulder scrambling.

For the last hour of the day, we mostly walked directly in the wash, which at this point had a little water (undrinkable) in it. It made for some surprisingly deep mud.

We saw a flat spot, and even though we hadn’t hit our mileage goal for the day (about a mile short) we decided to stop and camp there.

I washed off my feet, made dinner, and pretty soon fell asleep. It was a long 13 hours of hiking for only 20 miles!

Wednesday May 10, 1.6mi/2.6km

Hole-in-the-Rock Road / Escalante town (311.9/4600ft) to Below Fiftymile Bench (313.5/4860ft) (UT)

Sleeping indoors always feels a little weird since it stays dark inside even though its after sunrise. We slept in until 7am and then ate breakfast while packing up and doing laundry. Our cabin is pretty large, so stuff was spread out everywhere.

I ran over to the post office to get my maps, I love that everything in this town is like a 1 minute walk.

After spending all morning packing and relaxing we finally checked out of the cabin at noon and ate lunch at the cafe on the property.

Shadow and I each had a pizza, and while I was waiting I browsed their little library.

After lunch I walked down the street to Nemos takeout restaurant and ordered a milkshake….which took forever to get. Waiting almost 30 minutes for a milkshake is ridiculous, and it was 3pm by the time we started hitching back to trail. The first part of the hitch was tricky, 5 miles on the paved road, but eventually we got that ride. The 2nd hitch down the 34-mile dirt road was much trickier, since so few cars were heading down the remote Hole-in-the-rock road this late in the day. We sat there for 2 hours, and almost called it quits and head back to town, but then 2 women stopped and gave us a ride! Amazing.

They had hiked the PCT in 2019 and knew all about hitching back to trails, and we chatted for the long 1.5-hour drive to our trailhead. They dropped us off at 8:15pm, and by then we had only 30 minutes of daylight remaining.

So we hiked for 30 minutes, and then found a flat spot on the side of the trail / 4wd road.

I can’t believe we actually got a ride down that remote road! Tomorrow, we climb up Fiftymile Bench and enter the wilderness!

Tuesday May 9, 13.7mi/22.1km

Coyote Gulch (299.4/3810ft) to Hole-in-the-Rock Road (311.9/4600ft) (UT) +1.2mi searching for non-sketchy bypass

I woke up after a great night’s sleep, the sound of the nearby Creek was so peaceful. We got an earlier than expected start at 6:45 and hiked in the Coyote Gulch stream.

After a few minutes we came to an impassable Rockfall that was blocking the creek, and despite thoroughly investigating all the possible ways through the boulders we could not find a route there. In the past hikers used to scramble through a small hole between the boulders, but that has since been blocked up with more debris from the stream. So we had to backtrack a minute and then walk up a slanted, sketchy, slickrock shelf to get around the obstacle. Shadow went first.

It was a little sketchiest part of the Hayduke so far and I would not do it again. With that obstacle behind us the rest of the day was relaxing walking up the shallow Coyote Gulch stream.

The lower section of Coyote Gulch had half a dozen cool little waterfalls.

Yes, we went chasing waterfalls. And I even had that song playing on my phone, ha!

A mile later we hiked by a feature called Cliff Arch, which was a nice surprise since it appeared behind us.

The stream meandered within the valley and we got to hike through some little grassy sections to cut off the corners.

Then we got to the coyote Gulch natural bridge, it was huge!

I’m not sure of the difference between an arch and a natural bridge, but this one was so thick you could drive over it. We saw a dozen people hiking downstream this morning, as it’s a popular place for an overnight backpacking trip. We passed one couple hiking upstream with very large packs, and I was curious what was inside of their packs…. since most of their gear was strapped to the outside!

Soon after we hike through a little Narrows, apparently in high water it can be chest deep. It was only ankle deep for us.

It was such a verdant little canyon!

Next up was the Jacob Hamlin Arch, a huge Arch that we actually got to see twice because the canyon wrapped around 180°.

And then we started to leave Coyote Gulch, and headed up Hurricane wash. At first the wash was green, there was water, and also quite a few wildflowers.

And it was nice to walk along the cliffs in the shade.

Pretty soon though we came to a gate, and the canyon mostly disappeared, and the wash became quite shallow and sunny.

It was a slow slog walk through soft sand, but at least I got to look at some interesting scenery as we walked through this very short little narrow mini-canyon.

For the last 2 miles, we left the wash and hiked on a pretty decent Trail all the way to the Hole-in-the-Rock Road. Behind me and saw a sign, so we were now leaving the Glen Canyon recreation area.

And pretty soon we were in the parking lot. It was 1:50pm…. now time to wait for a vehicle to drive by and try to hitch the 39 miles to town.

We waited one hour and saw three vehicles go by in the wrong direction, and one SUV going our direction but they were too full of stuff to take us. Then finally a group of ATVs stopped and gave us a ride!

I had never ridden in an ATV before, and it was actually really fun and faster than a car on this dirt road.

After an hour and 15 minutes in their vehicle, the nice couple dropped us in Escalante at a convenience store / cafe. We walked directly to the local pub restaurant that was open (there are several but most of them are closed on Tuesdays), I ordered a spicy chicken sandwich…. amazing.

Shadow and I got a photo together, we have been hiking together for a week and I didn’t have any photos together yet.

After the restaurant, we walked to the Gear store (Utah Canyon Outdoors) and I bought a new water filter, fuel canister, and exchanged (Warranty) my darn tough socks. We grabbed a cabin across the street at the Escalante Outfitters, unfortunately there was only one cabin left and it was the big expensive one, but it was still cheaper than anything else in town. But it was nice and big with room to spread out, and for only $80 a person it seemed reasonable. We spent the rest of the evening sorting out our gear, eating junk food, and watching TV…. The usual town stuff, haha.

Tomorrow we will try to get a hitch back to the trailhead, which will be interesting, since it’s so far and on a very remote dirt road.

Monday May 8, 22.2mi/35.7km

Halls Creek (NA/3800ft) to Coyote Gulch (299.4/3810ft) (UT)

We got an early start, hiking out at 6am in headlamps. It was a 2000ft climb to the top of the Waterpocket Fold, and we wanted to have that finished before it got hot. The nearly-full moon was a cool sight.

We had a couple of miles of Halls Creek to finish before starting the climb, and it was strange seeing the moon against the sunrise on the rocks.

I found a huge piece of petrified wood lying near the stream!

We had a short break and inspected the climb, choosing our route thru the slickrock.

About halfway up the climb there was a surprise water source! Shadow had found a pothole in the rock, so it was a great excuse for a break.

We kept going up the slickrock for another mile, and it was easier than the bottom half, as there were more cairns to follow and it wasn’t as steep.

We took a long break at the top, since there was phone signal, and we needed some info on our upcoming descent thru Stevens Canyon.

I loved looking at the view back to the east, I could see the Colorado River, a ton of canyons and plateaus, and even a small town.

Finally we got moving again, beginning our descent into Stevens Canyon. It started out in a shallow wash…

…which gradually became more entrenched in the rock as we continued.

Then there was a big dryfall, and we spent 30 minutes walking along the rim, before finding a route down to the bottom of the Canyon.

We made it down to the bottom and it was pleasant walking for a while.

Then there was another dryfall, and we had to scramble up onto some ledges just above (100ft?) the stream.

I loved walking these slickrock ledges.

Shadow coming around the bend.

He usually walks faster than me, but today he stayed behind me most of the day, I guess I’m more comfortable with heights and exposure.

Sometimes the path was right on the edge!

But most of the time it was on really wide slickrock benches.

It seemed a long way down to the stream, and we soon had to descend to the bottom again.

We descended on a slickrock ramp, which was actually much less scary than I thought it would be. There was almost no exposure, and it wasn’t steep.

Once we were at the bottom, we hiked in the shallow stream, or a green jungle of bushes.

Walking in the stream was much nicer than the jungle.

There was one spot that we had to climb up 15ft to get around some deep water, and there was this hilarious staircase made of a rockpile for descending.

Finally, after 9 hours since we started our descent, we were at the Escalante River. It was about knee deep, and not too bad to walk in.

The famous Stevens Arch was around the first riverbend.

More Escalante River walking.

Stevens Arch!

After just over a mile in the Escalante river, we turned off to go up Coyote Gulch. It was very shallow, not even ankle deep.

We saw several other weekend backpackers, and took the first available camping spot we found, since it was after 7pm and we were exhausted after that long day.

It was a perfect spot! Hidden behind some bushes and up on a sandy bench, I could hear the other campers nearby but didn’t see them.
Tomorrow is a town day, hopefully we can get a difficult hitch into the town of Escalante.

Sunday May 7, 23.9mi/38.5km

Muley Twist Canyon (248.7/4840ft) to Halls Creek (NA/3800ft) (UT) +0.4mi to Muley tanks water, +16.0mi Halls Creek/Stevens Canyon alt.

I had moved my tent to a less windy spot overnight, so when Shadow saw my tent was “gone” in the morning, he hiked out early trying to catch me. I figured out the situation and got moving at my usual time of 7am to go catch him. The last mile of Muley Twist Canyon was just as impressive as the first.

I exited that canyon, and hiked briefly along Halls Creek before turning off to Muley Tanks, our water source this morning.

The Muley Tanks are two big potholes in the rock that collect water, and there was plenty.

Shadow was there waiting for me too. We refilled our water and hiked out to Halls Creek again. We were on a pretty well used footpath, so it was easy to follow. There wasn’t much excitement but it was pretty scenery.

I finally got a photo of one of the fast-moving lizards that seem to be everywhere here.

We walked downstream along the dry Halls Creek all morning, and I entertained myself with the scenery. The cliff had a huge hole in it, so big that trees were growing!

We kept walking south along Halls Creek, on an alternate route. The main Hayduke route had turned off to climb the Waterpocket Fold (cliff on our right), and then follows the Escalante River for like 29 miles. For the alternate, we will be following Halls Creek all day today, and then climbing the Waterpocket Fold tomorrow and following Stevens Canyon (skipping the brushy and likely deep Escalante River).

We stopped and had lunch in a shady spot, and then hiked on with excitement. The first mile looked the same…

…but then there was an option to walk a 4.2 mile narrow canyon! Cool.

It’s called the Halls Creek Narrows, and was my favourite part of the Hayduke so far.

Sometimes it got real narrow, and the water was almost waist deep.

How deep is this water? One way to find out!

There were dozens of these toads (frogs?) everywhere.

Shadow taking the lead in walking through one of the deeper parts. He is 183cm (6ft 0in) tall.

It was such a deep canyon with some nice shade, and lots of green.

This one short section was especially deep, and I had to take off my pack and lift it over my head. It was chest deep on me.

After two hours we exited Halls Creek Narrows, and we were back in the main Halls Creek wide valley.

The trail was a little less easy to follow but it was still mostly there.

Sometimes the trail would cross a little wash and disappear in the vegetation, but we would always find it again on the other side. Or sometimes find a cattle trail which was just as good.

We stopped for the day around 6pm, and setup our tents among some cottonwood trees.

Most of it was easy walking today, so we managed to hike almost 24 miles which is quite far for the Hayduke. Tomorrow, we will hike up 2000ft/600m to the top of the Waterpocket Fold, and down Stevens Canyon!

Saturday May 6, 23.9mi/38.5km

Muley Canyon (225.1/5920ft) to Muley Twist Canyon (248.7/4840ft) (UT) +0.3mi water

After a great night of sleep amongst the trees, we hiked out at 7am. Pretty soon we left the canyon and went cross country for a couple hours. Some of the rock formations around here are crazy looking, like this pointy mountain.

And then we saw this pointy finger!

This little cross-country section was fun, and we even found some cattle trails to follow for a little bit.

We dropped into a very small canyon for a few minutes before climbing right back out again.

Of course there was some walking in a wash too.

There was a spring at the junction of two little canyons, and I wandered around amongst the cattails to find the best place to access the water. When I finally got to it I discovered it looked a little funny, like an orange color.

It smelled and tasted fine, in the orange color was actually the sediment on the bottom. So I was very careful not to disturb the bottom. This would likely be our last water source for the rest of the day, since the next reliable one is 18 miles away. After this we took a little alternate/shortcut (saves 1mile), that a previous hiker Nic Barth had established. It went by these cool coal seams.

An added bonus was more cool rock formations like this drippy, melted-looking rock.

Desert wildflower!

It was after 9am so we decided to take a nice long snack break before descending into Swap Canyon.

It was a perfect temperature for hiking today about 60F/16C, with just the right amount of clouds. The descent into Swap Canyon was actually really easy, with no technical or steep sections at all. Within 10 minutes we were at the bottom.

It was a really enjoyable Canyon to walk, with hardly any annoying soft sand, and lots of good scenery.

I enjoyed the shade from the little cliffs nearby.

I haven’t yet seen a plant with both pink and white flowers!

We walked down Swap Canyon for a couple hours, and then when it ended at a larger valley we stopped for lunch. Looking ahead to the Burr trail switchbacks, which also means we entered Capitol Reef National Park.

Our lunch spot was pretty windy, so we did not stick around very long after finishing our meal. We had a couple miles of dirt roadwalking to do.

Ah, The official “welcome to Capitol Reef” sign along the road. There is a large geologic feature here called the waterpocket fold, it’s a 100-mile long wrinkle in the Earth’s crust. Very cool.

We saw like five cars pass by us on the short roadwalk, which was a little surprising given we are really far out from any town. At the top of the climb was the Muley Twist Canyon trailhead. There was a trail register so we even signed in!

This is a very popular dayhike, so most of the names in there we didn’t recognize, but there were a few Hayduke hikers as well.

The canyon started off shallow with this really cool grippy red sandstone.

Then it got a little deeper and I was walking on some gravel surrounded by taller sandstone walls.

When the canyon would go around a bend, the outside of the band was all cut-under and eroded, making these neat overhangs where water would drip down and create stripes.

After a few miles the canyon walls got *really* tall.

And then the cut-under corners became much more pronounced, becoming kind of like caves.

At one spot we had to hike through a pile of jumbled boulders, which created these little cave passageways. Shadow tried the first one which didn’t work.

The second little cave worked though!

Towards the end of the day the Canyon started to get a little wider, and we could see more of the surrounding landscape. Like these cool flatiron mountains, just like in Boulder CO!

After walking Muley Twist Canyon for almost 10 miles, we decided to stop for the night as it was almost 6pm.

With all the cross-country hiking, and also the Swap Canyon we did this morning, it was almost a 24 mile day….my biggest one yet on the Hayduke! We made dinner and then started to head to bed around 8pm, and it got really windy. I was holding up my tent so it wouldn’t be flattened by the wind. The wind was also so strong it was blowing sand through the mesh of the tent, and I was basically eating sand while laying there. Gross. I moved my tent to a slightly better spot, which didn’t really help. So I moved it to an even better spot, a 5 minute walk away tucked into some trees and bushes. After all of the tent-moving and sand-cleaning, it was 10:30 before I finally got to bed, sheesh.