Saturday June 17, 21.9mi/35.2km

Barview Jetty County Campground (66.4/15ft) to Cape Lookout State Park (86.6/20ft) (OR)

I left camp at my usual 7am starting time, and as soon as I left the state park I was walking on some railroad tracks.

The tracks parallel highway 101, which I will avoid walking as much as possible. I walked along Tillamook Bay and saw a lot of people getting clams(?) out of the sand, since it was low tide.

An hour later I was at the Port of Garibaldi, where I needed to arrange a boat ride across the bay to continue the trail.

I talked to a woman at the marina and she agreed to get her daughter to ferry me across in a small boat. They can only do it when the tide is coming in (not going out), and it was $50. While I waited, I was kept company by their dog Goosey, who was very interested in giving me her bone.

It was a very windy and cold boat ride, but it only lasted 5 minutes, and was the easiest mile I have traveled yet on this trail.

Now back on land, I walked along the other side of Tillamook Bay for an hour.

At one point the trail left the bay, and crossed the narrow strip of land I was on….

…. To emerge thru the dunes and at the beach on the other side of this narrow strip.

After a relaxing couple miles on the beach, it ended at a headland so I walked inland through a small village.

I turned onto a road up to Cape Meares, and there was no traffic since the road was temporarily closed for a landslide. It was a relaxing walk through a very tall forest.

After a couple miles I was in the main area for Cape Meares, and I started seeing more people, since there is another access road from the other side.

After crossing the parking lot, the first thing I saw was the largest Sitka Spruce in Oregon!

It’s 800 years old and 144 ft tall, dang.

I put my backpack next to it for a size reference.

I continued down the path and rejoined the road that leads to the lighthouse. There were viewpoints looking north:

And to the south:

At the end of the peninsula was Oregon’s shortest lighthouse, the Tillamook lighthouse is only 38 feet tall.

It sits on top of a 200 ft cliff so it doesn’t need to be that tall. Even from the lower viewing platform it didn’t seem very tall!

I tried to get a look at the inside, but you had to make a paid reservation for a tour. Oh well.

I walked back toward the parking area and found myself a picnic table to eat lunch at.

It was next to this cool welcome sign that I had missed on the way in.

After lunch I continued South, and just before I left the park there was one last attraction, the octopus tree.

It’s a bizarre looking tree that has no central/main trunk, but instead has eight separate trunks. Wild!

I continued on a short trail through the forest and then had an hour of roadwalking before I arrived back on the beach again.

The beach seemed pretty empty and I hardly saw any people or footprints. I saw a couple cool tiny little waterfalls though.

And then I came around a corner, and I saw heaps of people. An entire wedding party, in fact.

It’s one of those wedding spots that would be beautiful in photos but everything else about it would suck – it was windy, there was sand blowing everywhere, and it smelled like low tide. Pretty soon the beach ended and I came to another marina. Theoretically it’s possible to get a boat shuttle across this bay as well, but I didn’t see anyone around except these two scuba divers in the water.

So I did the roadwalk around the bay, which was about the same distance and was a scenic walk.

Two hours later and I had arrived at Cape Lookout State Park.

I registered at the entrance booth, and then walked to the hiker/biker site, which was in a beautiful secluded corner of the campground.

Just like before, there were nice food storage lockers to keep my stuff safe from the critters. And a short 100m walk led to this amazing little viewpoint over the beach.

It was my favorite campsite on this trail so far! I went to bed early, since I have to start hiking at 5am tomorrow in order to make it through a spot that requires low tide.

Friday June 16, 21.9mi/35.2km

Above Short Sand Beach (45.1/120ft) to Barview Jetty County Campground (66.4/15ft) (OR) + 0.6mi Manzanita lunch stop

I packed up and left my improvised camp spot, which was surprisingly comfortable. In a few minutes I was at Short Sand beach.

It was only 7:30 and already there were a bunch of surfers out enjoying the waves. I sat at one of the many picnic tables and enjoyed my breakfast. Afterwards, I hiked out of the picnic area only to find that the bridge had been destroyed by a fallen tree.

The stream was almost dry, so it was simple to rock hop across and continue on. I began the long slow climb up to the top of Neahkahnie Mountain. The trail switchbacked up the hillside and went right underneath this big tree!

After a little ways I entered a meadow with great views back towards the ocean.

After crossing highway 101 there was a small trailhead.

The trail climbed over 1,000 feet/300m up through a mature forest to the top of a ridge.

At one of the many switchbacks there was this confusing sign. It didn’t say what the danger was, so I was rather curious.

An hour later I was at the top of the mountain with a great view down to the town of Manzanita and the beach.

I had a snack break up top but it was a little chilly so I didn’t stay long. As soon as I crossed over this ridge it was a little windy too.

The downhill went quickly and pretty soon I was back down in greener terrain.

These vertical purple flowers were surprisingly abundant.

There were even a few of these thin little snakes! They were pretty short, only 12 inches/30cm.

After an hour of descending, I crossed back over Highway 101 and headed to the coast.

I walked through a neighborhood to get to the beach, and they had this funny sign.

The beach walk was windy, so thankfully I was only on it for a mile before I turned off into the town of Manzanita.

Time to grab some lunch! There were several burrito places.

Fortunately I chose the burrito place where you could get it smothered with red and green chile sauce.

It’s pretty rare to see that option outside of the Four corners States, so I was pretty excited. I made a quick stop to the grocery store for some ice cream and snacks.

And then I walked a couple blocks back to the beach. It was still windy and now it was foggy too.

I always walk on the hard packed sand since that is much easier to hike on, and I noticed there were signs that prohibited people from walking on the soft sand where birds were nesting.

An hour later I was at Nehalem Bay, and the only way across was to get a boat ride. I called the marina which was only a few hundred yards away across the channel.

While I was waiting for them to come pick me up I noticed someone had lined up a lot of crabs on the beach.

And these seals were in the water playing!

The guy from the marina came and got me 10 minutes later, and I threw my backpack in the fishing boat.

The marina also had a seafood business, so of course I had to try a Dungeness crab.

I had intended this to be a quick stop, but cracking into a crab is slow work so I was there for almost an hour. I finally left the marina at 5pm and hiked along the jetty back to the beach.

The beach walk was very nice and the wind had finally stopped. I passed by this cool formation called Twin Rocks.

As usual, there were a few people out walking on the beach. Two women were walking in my direction and joined me for 20 minutes of conversation. They were training for the “Hood to Coast” race in 2 months, a popular annual relay race in Portland. They were fun to talk to and the time flew by. Pretty soon I was at the end of the beach.

I exited the beach and walked into Barview Jetty County campground. It was a huge Campground, mostly full of RVs, so it took me awhile to find the hiker/biker site. I had to walk all the way out to the entrance station to get a map and a permit, and then walk a half mile back to the campsite. Clearly this place was designed by somebody with a car! I setup in my nice little camp spot and had dinner at a picnic table, it felt so civilized.

Another day on the Oregon coast!

Thursday June 15, 29.0mi/46.7km

Seaside Village (17.6/12ft) to Above Short Sand Beach (45.1/120ft) (OR) +0.4mi Cape Falcon, +1.1mi wandering in the dark

I slept in late at the hostel since the room was dark, and then I cooked a unique breakfast of random items from the free food shelf. Bacon & Mac & cheese…for breakfast! After cleaning my dishes and getting packed up I finally left the hostel at 9am. I finished walking through Seaside, it’s a nice little tourist town.It was still early in the morning so the ice cream place was unfortunately closed. Next time!I walked toward the ocean where they have a little park, commemorating the founding of the town.There is a statue of Lewis and Clark, since this is the spot where they encountered the Pacific Ocean.Instead of a boardwalk (which would rot and fall apart quickly), they built a nice promenade that was several miles long.There were people out rollerblading, walking, doing yoga, flying kites, and even breakdancing. The people-watching was so good, I almost missed the huge line of sand dollars glued down to the handrail.After a couple miles the promenade ended, and I was left with a little bit of beach walking to do.I quickly left the beach and walked up some neighborhood streets, which led to the hiking trail. I guess I’m safe now that I left the tsunami zone.At the end of the road I came to the trailhead parking lot, and in case I had any doubt there were Oregon Coast Trail signs everywhere.Even the trailhead itself had a prominent wooden arch!I climbed steeply up Tillamook Head for a couple miles.I could tell it was a wet environment because these massive slugs were everywhere.At the top of the climb, the environment changed to an old growth forest.It was really neat to walk through a dense shady forest, and it was quite a bit cooler up here at 1200 feet elevation.Occasionally the trail will get toward the edge of the headland, and I would get a view all the way down to the ocean.I stopped for lunch at one of the official OCT campsites, which had three wooden shelters and a nice fire pit.

The inside of each shelter had four wooden bunks, it actually looked pretty nice.

As I was eating my lunch, a couple of families walked through and told me about another nearby point of interest, an old military radar station. So of course I had to walk the quarter mile to go see.

There was another lookout point near the radar station, and I could see the Tillamook lighthouse off in the distance on a rocky island. It’s no longer in operation and is now a bird sanctuary.

I packed up and continued on, and as the trail descended towards Indian Beach, I got better and better views of the beach.

I quickly passed through the Trailhead parking lot, there were heaps of cars and it was crowded. Once I was past there I got a look back at the beach in the Tillamook headland where I had just hiked down from.

Pretty soon I came to another Trailhead parking area with a nice grassy meadow and picnic areas.

Apparently a bunch of movies had scenes filmed in this spot, including the 1985 classic, The Goonies.

I hiked on through the forest for two more miles, and after cutting through a neighborhood I arrived back to the beach.

I strolled down Cannon Beach for several miles and there were tons of people, the most I had seen on any beach so far. The famous Haystack Rock was the main attraction, and there were at least 100 people gathered around it.

I kept walking and was happy to leave the crowds behind. In three more miles I came to a small rocky outcrop that could only be bypassed at low tide.

Apparently in the 1800s they had blasted a crude roadway through this rocky cliff. Even at the lowest tide at 4pm I still had to wade a little bit.

This part of the beach was more remote and had a little cave and a bunch of boulders.

I hiked on the beach for another hour, before leaving it for the final time today. As soon as I was inland I started hiking on a forested trail. I love these bouncy swingbridges!

I climbed up and up, to the top of the headland above Cape Falcon.

Once I was back up over 1000 feet elevation, I reentered the familiar dark forest.

And the trees were completely draped in moss.

Just before sunset, I got a couple of good views down to Cape Falcon.

My plan was to camp at a little flat spot near Cape Falcon, but unfortunately that spot had eroded away and was now sliding into the sea hundreds of feet below. So I kept hiking. And hiking. The forest is so dense here that even when the land is flat, there’s no way to camp with all the vegetation. Finally at 9:30pm, after hiking by headlamp for almost an hour, I found a tiny spot tucked under some bushes. Good enough!

Wednesday June 14, 17.9mi/28.8km

Mouth of Columbia River (0.0/10ft) to Seaside Village (17.6/12ft) (OR) +0.3mi to Hostel

I ate breakfast and packed up my tent while talking to two other campers who were at the campsite. When I went to get my breakfast out of the food locker, I noticed each locker had an outlet for charging. Amazing.

I walked over to the ranger station to pay for my campsite, since they had been closed the night before when I arrived.

I walked out to the main road to hitch a ride to the start of the trail.

About 45 minutes later my ride dropped me off at the jetty and lookout tower, both of which were under construction for repairs.

Even without the lookout tower, the view was still pretty good from up on the jetty.

Every trail has a starting photo!

I walked on the jetty for 10 minutes, heading toward the dunes and beach.

The unmarked trail through the dunes was pretty easy to follow.

I dropped down to the beach, and it had a cool cobblestone texture.

Pretty soon it changed over to the normal hardpacked sand. Even though it was almost high tide, the beach was still huge.

An hour later I hiked by the shipwreck, Peter Iredale. It ran aground in 1906 on its way to the Columbia River.

This area is known as the graveyard of the Pacific. Neat!

This is the only section of beach in Oregon where cars are allowed to drive on it. And sure enough, I saw a dozen or so driving up and down the hardpacked sand.

Even at the highest tide, I still had plenty of beach to walk on.

This was a massive tree stump that must have washed ashore, it looked cool the way it was cut at a bunch of different geometric angles.

Somebody has wedged a sand dollar in one of the stump’s cracks, ha!

I hiked on the beach all morning and some of the afternoon, this is the longest stretch of beach on the entire Oregon Coast Trail. This bird seemed rather intent on its meal…

…. So of course I had to go check out what it was trying to eat. A dead sea critter! Its skeleton was about 6 feet long, I wonder what it was.

It was pretty cloudy all day, and a couple times it even misted it a little bit. I continued to hike with my warm hat and vest on, since it never got above 60°F/16C.

After 15 miles, I left the beach and exited through the dunes.

I walked through the small seaside village of Gearhart, which apparently has a problem with roaming elk.

I walked on highway 101 for about a mile, which wasn’t ideal. But using roads is sometimes the only way across coastal rivers, which can be pretty deep and wide.

Pretty soon I had left Gearhart and entered Seaside, a larger tourist town.

The slogan of this business made me laugh, “get to higher ground” ha!

This trail was starting to remind me of the Te Araroa in New Zealand, with all of the beach walks and fish & chip shops.

I love every kind of fish, so of course I stopped and bought some. Delicious.

I finished my second lunch, and continued my walk through Seaside. The houses were all pretty nice, and a normal size too. Often in coastal towns there are giant McMansions that don’t fit in with the town character.

It was 4pm, and I was debating what to do. The next legal camping was 7 miles away, which would mean a 25-mile day. Or I could walk a couple blocks to the hostel, and stop for the day, which means only an 18 mile day. I decided to have an easy first day, and checked into the hostel.

Seaside Lodge & Hostel had a pretty chill atmosphere and I relaxed on the back deck overlooking the water. Eventually I got settled into my bunkroom and got a nice hot shower.

I had been a little cold all day, since it was cloudy and windy outside. The hot shower was a perfect way to fix that. I walked a couple blocks over to the tiny “grocery store”, which was terrible. But I found enough stuff to make dinner with. (There is a huge Safeway in town too, but it’s a mile away). After dinner I did some trip planning to try to figure out camping for the next few days, this trail is complex in that manner. It was an easy first day, but I still fell asleep by 10pm.

Tuesday June 13, 0.0mi/0.0km

Peter Iredell Campground (3.8/20ft) (OR)

I was awake at 5am, and drove across all of Oregon. Eastern Oregon is always a beautiful drive thru the high desert, and it was great to see the Wallowa mountains. Western Oregon was a little cloudy and cooler (20C/68F), and I saw plenty of snow on top of Mount Hood.

I stopped in Portland to buy a few things. The first stop was at Fred Meyer to do my food resupply. They have the grossest flavors of Doritos nowadays….

I stopped at Next Adventure, one of Portland’s local gear shops. I bought a new fuel canister and I was looking for a rain kilt, but they didn’t have one. Then I went downtown to get my Patagonia shorts replaced (warranty), and of course stopped by my favorite bookstore.

I had arranged to store my van at a place in Beaverton, so I dropped it off there, and then got a train to the Sunset transit Center. Public transit in Oregon is pretty good, and there is even a bus line that goes twice a day out to the Oregon coast & Astoria.

The bus arrived a little after 6pm, and after making stops in every little town along the way I finally arrived to a Fred Meyer grocery store on the coast at 8:15pm. Perfect! My plan was to get an Uber to the start of the trail, and then hike the 3.5 miles to the only legal campsite, at Fort Stevens State Park. It would get dark at 9:30pm, so this was just enough time. Unfortunately the Uber driver called me and said he wasn’t coming, “it’s not worth it”, and since he was the only driver available (both local taxi companies were out on long trips), I was now stuck. Time for an impromptu plan B. I decided to go directly to the campground at Fort Stevens State Park, which was only 4 miles from my current spot. I went inside the store to ask one of the employees about other local taxi services, and she said she was done with her shift in 10 minutes and would just drop me off there herself. Sweet! I got to the campground at 9:15pm, and setup my tent in the hiker/biker site.

I sat at a picnic table and made my dinner….it felt so civilized! I didn’t get any hiking miles done today but I am technically on the trail. Tomorrow I will hitch a ride 4 miles north to the start of the trail and then begin the hike south!

Sunday June 11 & Monday June 12

After camping on some public land, I packed up and drove the final two hours to Moab. I drove directly to Enterprise dropped off the rental car, and then utilized a brand new service in Moab, on-demand public transit! I called their phone number and they picked me up within 10 minutes. They drove me most of the way to the vehicle storage place, and I had to walk the last mile, because they’re not allowed to drive outside of their service area. Still better than trying to hitchhike! I was reunited with my van, and she looked the same as always.

I drove back into downtown Moab, and stopped at the Lazy Lizard hostel for a shower. It was the best $4 I’d spent all week!

After getting some gas for the van and a burrito for me, I hit the road. I made the 6-hour drive in one shot, all the way to my storage unit in Denver. I had to pick up some things for my next few hikes this summer, and also clean out my overflowing PO box, ha!

I was a little behind schedule, so I got right back on the road and started driving towards Oregon. I picked up some Culver’s to go, and made it halfway across Wyoming before stopping to camp for the night.

On Monday, it was just a driving day and I made it to the Idaho/Oregon border.

Saturday June 10, 3.7mi/6.0km

Above E Fork Virgin River (797.0/4800ft) to Highway 9 / Finish (800.7/1234ft) (UT)

With such a short distance to hike today I didn’t bother getting an early start. I usually left camp at 7:30 and had fun hiking on slickrock most of the morning.

I had a little bit more climbing to do, but it was perfect weather and a nice morning to hike.

Pretty soon I was on top with a little plateau. Views ahead to the north:

For a long time I was hiking on this beautiful slickrock ridge.

It was some of my favorite type of hiking, it’s just like a huge sandstone sidewalk!

It seemed like a perfect way to end this trail considering I also started it on slickrock. The last mile was in a sandy wash, And all these little purple wildflowers were out.

It was surprisingly green, at times it almost felt like the Appalachian Trail. Except without the humidity, bugs, or crowds….so I guess not like the AT at all!

Just after 10am I arrived at the highway, and I started hitching at this little parking pull-off area.

This area is called Checkerboard Mesa, because apparently from the right angle the red and white rocks alternate in a checkerboard pattern.

After 45 minutes of hitching I got a ride from a guy from Saint George named Lyle.

He owns a local business and has lived there for many decades, so he knew a ton about the area and even gave me a little scenic tour on the long drive back to St George! The first part of the drive was in the national park, and we had to pass through a long tunnel to get down to the main park area.

It was one of the most fun hitches I’ve ever had, We talked a bunch about the local area, hiking, the desert, pretty much everything. Lyle dropped me off at the local Enterprise car rental. It was perfect timing since I arrived just 15 minutes before they closed, and they waived the one-way rental fee because they needed more cars in Moab anyway (which is where I was driving to).

I love that these modern cars have finally upgraded all their charging to USB-C. Perfect!

My first stop was to drive a few minutes to the Pizza Factory, where I devoured a salad, pizza, and too many lemonades.

One of the local places Lyle had told me about was called the Red Hills Desert Garden. It was free, so I took a quick stroll through there and saw many of the same plants I had been looking at these past two months. But now with names and background information!

There was this very large bird just standing perfectly still in the water. Strange guy.

I left the garden, and a little further down that same road was a rock feature called the “St. George Narrows”. Another couple was there too, and they clearly did not fit in the very small crack. It was probably only 12 inches/30cm wide.

I walked up to the top of those rocks and there was a nice view down to the city of St George.

I realized it was now mid-afternoon, and so I walked back to my rental car and started the 5-hour drive back to Moab.

Friday June 9, 21.8mi/35.1km

Squirrel Creek (NA/5480ft) to Above E Fork Virgin River (797.0/4800ft) (UT) +2.1mi GPS correction

I slept in and left camp at 7:30. I still had some uphill hiking to do to finish the climb out of Squirrel Canyon. Surprisingly I was hiking in a green tunnel for a little while!

Once I climbed out of Squirrel Canyon, the views opened up and I was hiking on sandy roads for most of the day.

There was even some water flowing in Birch Creek!

Occasionally I got to hike on some slickrock that would appear randomly. It’s been awhile since I had hiked on some slickrock!

The sandy roads continued all morning, and often the sand was soft and deep which was very slow hiking.

When I found some shade under a Juniper tree I stopped and had lunch. It was my last lunch on the Hayduke since I will finish tomorrow morning!

I turned around while eating my wrap and saw this thriving cactus. Springtime in the desert is so colorful.

I continued on down the trail/road, and after an hour I entered the Parunuweap Canyon Wilderness. Cool! Parunuweap is a Paiute word meaning “roaring water canyon.”

Finally at 3pm the road walking ended, and I started my steep descent into the Parunuweap Canyon.

I went steeply down some slickrock and talus…

… And within a quarter mile I was standing in the East Fork Virgin River.

For the next five miles I got to hike down this amazing canyon.

I mostly hiked in the river, but occasionally there were little herd paths next to it.

I had to pay attention on some of the herd paths, since this evil plant was growing next to it.

After awhile the Canyon became a narrows.

I definitely had to walk in the river here!

This would definitely be a bad place to be stuck during a flash flood. Probably the reason nobody hikes these narrow canyons during the summer monsoon season.

After four miles I came to an obstacle with a few boulders and some driftwood choking off the canyon. Hmmm…

It took me quite awhile to solve that puzzle since none of the three options (downclimbing, swimming, jumping in water of unknown depth) looked pleasant.

I waterproofed my backpack and prepared to swim, but once I got closer I didn’t like how narrow the chute was. So I played to my strengths, and carefully downclimbed the large boulder, and lowered myself into crotch-deep water. With part 1 of the obstacle completed, I now had to figure out part 2, which came just a minute later…a small waterfall! Fortunately I found a very small cave/tunnel in the left canyon wall, and I was able to bypass the waterfalls.

The waterfalls, as seen from just downstream where the tunnel emerged from the boulders:

Solving those puzzles took me an hour, and by now it was 7pm. I quickly hiked the rest of the Canyon in 20 minutes and got to the exit point, which was called “Fat man’s misery”. It started as a steep climb of a talus field, with a bunch of poison ivy to avoid.

The namesake feature of the climb was this little tunnel between boulders. I had to take off my backpack to fit through, and even then…. it felt squeezy.

After emerging through a hole in the boulders, I felt thoroughly scraped up, wet, full of sand, and tired.

But I was done for the day! And I had a great view down to the East Fork Virgin River (& Parunuweap Canyon) where I had just been hiking.

It was my last night camping on the Hayduke, and I had an amazing little camping spot.

What a surprisingly long day! Usually dirt roads are easy but these were slow and sandy, and the Parunuweap Canyon was amazing but also slow due to the tricky spots. The Hayduke kept the adventure coming, right up to the last minute! I will finish tomorrow morning after hiking what should be a quick 4 miles to the road.

Thursday June 8, 13.5mi/21.7km

Highway 389 (766.6/5160ft) (AZ) to Squirrel Creek (NA/5480ft) (UT)

I finished my laundry and resupply shopping, and checked out of the motel at 11am. I walked back through town, and I was entertained by a bunch of little things. Like this funny sign! “Adventure’s 2nd stop, Maverik is the first” Ha!

It seemed to be the last day of school, all the kids were out in the park having a catered lunch and talking excitedly.

It was a very nice park too, with tons of old leafy trees and green grass.

I went to the Main Street Cafe for lunch, and I see why it is so highly recommended.

It’s kind of hidden down a side street and didn’t look very special from the outside, but the food was excellent!

After lunch I walked down the block to the east end of town, and hitched out of Hurricane. I waited for about 30 minutes before being picked up, and it was one of the more entertaining rides I’ve had. Stacy was great to talk with, and he explained how he had invented this device that picks up all the sharp burrs (goat heads, thistle, etc) from your floor or yard.

Apparently after posting a video on TikTok and getting 80 million views, he started selling tons of his product. Cool guy. He was kind enough to drop me off at the exact spot along highway 389 where I had left off my hike yesterday.

It was an easy 6-mile road walk although the passing trucks made me nervous. One of the local properties had some very strange things in their yard.

“Apple dumplings and UFO transportation center” Huh?!? The porta-potty with the built-in TV antenna and the sign “ejection seat” was equally confusing. I kept walking. After a couple hours I entered Colorado City.

I stopped into Bee’s Marketplace for a snack, and I was impressed how big and modern the grocery store was.

After talking to a few employees I found out that most of the former townspeople (Fundamentalist LDS, aka polygamists) were forced out and now the town is modernizing and a ton of new stuff is being built. The milkshakes were pretty good!

I walked through the rest of town and noticed that while some of it seemed normal, there were definitely some blocks that had a creepy vibe and all the houses had the word “Zion” over their doorways.

A few times I had seen big groups of identical looking children roaming around, and all dressed in old-timey clothing. I’m pretty sure they were all siblings….7 kids is a big family! Even the post office was a little odd, I’d never seen one that served two different towns in two different states.

Most blocks of Colorado City had houses, but occasionally there was a block that was just a small farm with random animals roaming around. Weird.

After walking north for a mile, I technically crossed from Arizona back into Utah. There were no signs or anything showing the border, it was just a big empty park.

Finally after a couple hours I was leaving the town behind. As I walked up Water Canyon, I was intrigued by this little farm on the outskirts. I was totally excited to buy squeaky cheese curds, except they were closed. D’oh.

I walked further up Water Canyon and then it split off into Short Creek.

My maps were not quite accurate, and I could not follow the route drawn without trespassing on private property. But eventually I figured out the proper route and arrived at Squirrel Canyon Trailhead.

I walked for a couple miles on very wide trails (probably old Jeep roads), with a ton of soft deep sand that was slow going.

Soft sand is the worst. As I slowly climbed Squirrel Canyon, the trail became a little better. There was even a small creek and spring flowing!

I didn’t need any water since I had carried 2 liters from town, and with all the cows around It was probably a little polluted. I hiked uphill a few more minutes to find a flat spot, and then I set up my tent to camp.

It’s one of my last nights camping on the Hayduke and it’s a pretty nice spot overlooking the valley.

Wednesday June 7, 27.8mi/44.8km

Upper Hack Canyon (739.2/4600ft) to Highway 389 (766.6/5160ft) (AZ) + 0.4mi water reservoir

I thought it might get hot in the afternoon, so I started hiking early at 6:15am. The next 30 or so miles are called the Arizona Strip, and is known for being a shadeless plateau and often getting hot. I love morning miles and watching the sunrise creep down the canyon walls.

Even the moon was out! Although it was about to set.

In less than an hour I came to my first water source for the day called Hack “reservoir”. That was such an optimistic description of this water feature.

I checked it out pretty thoroughly and I couldn’t find anywhere that wasn’t a sludgy muddy mess, and also it was filled with old tires. There was even a dead cow nearby! Gross. (Cows ruin everything).

So I kept hiking all morning on a dirt two track road, and the nice cool temperatures of the morning sun.

Occasionally I would see small herds of cows just roaming around freely, and this group had a cute little calf with it.

The miles flew by on all these flat easy dirt roads. And so far, it wasn’t hot…my lucky day!

For maybe half an hour the route detoured off into Yellowstone wash.

Hiking in the wash seemed kind of pointless since there was a nice dirt road that ran parallel to it, but I didn’t know that until I had finished hiking the wash. Next time I would stick to the road! There was a small climb, and at the top was this very nice water source that was fenced off and protected from cows. Amazing!

I took off my pack, drank a ton of water, and had my lunch break there. Some small clouds even came in to provide a little bit of shade, and there was a breeze which made the temperature perfect.

From this spot I was only 11 miles from the highway and the town of Colorado City. I decided to try to make it to town and I hiked all afternoon on more lovely dirt roads.

It was great scenery, I was hiking North towards these next set of mountains in the distance.

I arrived to the big paved highway 389 just after 4pm. It’s amazing what’s possible with perfect temperatures and nice dirt roads, I hiked 27 miles by 4pm! I spent 45 minutes standing by the road hitching, and eventually an oil worker picked me up on his way to his next job (13 hours away!). I was in the little town of Hurricane UT.

It looked like a lovely little place, they even had a little heritage House museum, just like the one in Kanab.

There was a big city park that was two blocks long and it even had a little splash park, so of course I had to walk through it and feel the nice cold water spray everywhere. It reminded me of many of the small towns in New Zealand on the Te Araroa.

After a quick Google search I determined that the Rodeway Inn was the best deal, and they even had a free breakfast.

I checked into my room dropped off all my stuff and probably went across the street to the Rooster Run cafe, and got dinner. And a milkshake, of course.

After dinner I went back to my room and showered and did some planning for my next upcoming hikes. The hotel has a nice laundry room but apparently it closed at 8pm, so I’ll have to do that in the morning along with a few other minor chores. Only a few more days on the Hayduke, and then I’m finished!