After Coyote Gulch, Tangent and I found ourselves waiting on a dirt road in what appeared to be the middle of nowhere — Hurricane Wash. True to its name, wind and sand pelted us; our clothing flapped wildly, threatening to tear off. Tangent’s water bottle caught in the wind and began to roll down the road.
How can anyone get a hitch from this desolate of a road, let alone for a 40 mile distance into town? We waited.
In 5 minutes, we were approached by a tourist from Pennsylvania that seemed to appear out of nowhere. He had been hunkered down, waiting in one of two cars parked at the trailhead. He was headed into Coyote Gulch in about 30 minutes, so not good for a ride. He did give us water and some snacks, and we gave him some water purification tablets and chit-chat, because he had no filter.
We waited.
10 minutes later a Brit and his son pulled up to the trailhead. I chatted with them, and they were also headed down to Coyote Gulch. A bit of conversation later, and he profered a beer. I graciously accepted. With a click of the top, I could happily drink a beer that was increasingly sand, rather than hop, infused as the wind and sand smashed into us.
We waited.
A car came down the road. I rapidly downed my beer and stuck out my thumb. They pulled over, and offered us a ride in the bed of their pickup.
In under 45 minutes we had manifested a hitch from what looked like a barren spot of desert. Our hitch back to this spot from the town of Escalante the next morning involved three cars — all of which picked us up in under 10 minutes. Absolute magic!
The quality of trail, however, deteriorated. Our first day out of town met us with rain, wind, and slippery mud. After a handful of steps our shoes became platforms. Surely I towered over my peers in this state, finally achieving a stature of 6 feet. The rain eventually stopped as we crested a ridge to begin our descent into Monday and Rogers Canyons.
If there were anything good to say about these Canyons, it would be very difficult to find in writing. Mostly, one might describe them as a slog. Maneuvering between boulder slides required bypasses far up and out of the way. We regularly slipped on mud as we moved from one creek bank to the next. The canyon eventually opened up into a pile of sand dunes, looking exactly like what I would describe as ” a desolate landscape.” Soon after we dropped into Navajo canyon. Miles of slogging later, we once again found ourselves at a road in the middle of nowhere, trying to hitch into Tropic for a quick resupply. After an hour or so we got a hitch into town, which was with two hayduke hikers that were setting up water and food caches and planned to start in two says. Getting back to trail proved difficult. After 2 low-mile rides in 3 hours, we found ourselves walking an additional 8 miles back to trail.
Back on trail things became glorious again. What Monday and Rogers lacked, Hackberry Canyon delivered — pleasant canyon walking and great water. We herded long-horned cows in front of us as we struggled to open the janky, lazy tension gates ranchers seemed to erect as an after thought. Hackberry turned into the meanders of the Paria River. This is an area locals want to remove from the National Monument so they can build a road directly through the canyon. The flat floodplain already contained tire tracks and four rusted-out appliances that had been dumped along its 10 mile length. The stunning sandstone walls and floodwater basin could surely benefit from a 4 lane highway and a sanctioned landfill.
Rain began to fall as we approached the narrow slot canyon of Willis Creek. Choosing to not roll the dice on a flood in a slot canyon, we setup camp for the night.
With love from Tropic (a second time),
Jeff
