Fiftymile Mountain To Tropic

Until now, my food planning had been on point. I had added an additional day to each cache and, for one reason or another, had always needed that added day. So when I reached my cache near the Hole-in-the-Rock Road, I had only one emergency dinner and a few snacks left.  I didn’t have this safety net for the next section. It was longer than the previous ones and, due to the capacity of the cache, I was not able to add a full day of food. In addition, the parmesan cheese that was supposed to provide three lunches was moldy beyond rescue. I had chocolate that I could substitute, but there wasn’t anything extra. I was confident that I could reach my next bucket before I would run out of supplies, but it’s always better to be prepared for an extra day.

Yahan’s Garlic - Yumm!

I was well rested after an easy day hiking out of Coyote Gulch on a well defined trail when I set out the next morning, but the climb up Fiftymile Mountain broke my spirit for the day. It was a moderate 3000’, but I was going up a very steep horse trail that varied between deep sand and slippery rocks. The views from the rim were phenomenal.

Top Of Fiftymile Mountain 

The deep sand continued once I reached the plateau until I got to a small meadow that looked strangely out of place in the desert landscape. There were plenty of cow pies, but I didn’t care and sunk into the grass, panting. The sun was hot, but at the same time a very cold wind was blowing, so that I actually had to take my puffy jacket off as soon as I laid down to rest and got out of the wind.

I had to make a few more miles to Mudhoney Spring. This was the make or break point of this reportedly very dry section. If it was flowing and I could refill my water, I would be able to make it through. If not, I had to return to the road and try to hitch a ride to Escalante to regroup. I labored on and the spring was not only flowing, but well maintained, presumably by the folks who ran the 5 T Ranch who had also established a corral nearby. 

Mudhoney Spring 

That was the only sign of human involvement I was to see on the desolate Kaiparowits Plateau. I wanted to make it into Monday Canyon as the wind on the plateau was pretty nasty and I didn’t anticipate it to become warmer at night. I hiked across the plateau through the deep sand and the scratchy brushes until I found the entrance to the canyon. It was a serious bushwhack to get into it, but once at the bottom, there was less vegetation and I found a good camp spot.

The following day I spent going down the canyon. I liked the upper part as it has many unique cave like rock features that I had bet seen in the other canyons.

Hobbit House?

Soon there were more and more obstacles though, either pour offs or huge boulders, that I had to climb over, around or up a canyon wall and back down further on. It was fun in the beginning but became very tiring soon. 

Monday Canyon

I also didn’t make much headway towards my destination. The previous day was already a low mileage day and if things would continue that way I may run out of provisions before reaching my next cache. By 3 pm I had only made 5 miles and was pretty exhausted. I was getting close to Roger’s Canyon. Fortunately I had found a few large potholes, rock indentations that were filled with rainwater and lots of miniature aquatic life. It was too discolored to filter, but I could boil it for tea. I didn’t anticipate the extinguished aquatic life to raise to the surface and, at least in my imagination, stare at me accusingly out of hundreds of tiny dead eyes. It was a bit unnerving, but I added a tea bag and told myself that it was just like a seafood boil. 

Hiking on, there was less vegetation and the landscape looked desolate, with huge boulder fields and dramatic looking rock piles. It was difficult to find a flat area to camp. The sky looked a bit ominous and I definitely didn’t want to camp in the bottom of the canyon in case it was going to rain. At last I found a tiny spot on what looked like an island at the confluence of two canyons. It was too small for the tent, but the clouds had moved on and rain seemed less likely. I also didn’t think I’d find a better spot anywhere near and it was getting late. I cooked dinner and went to sleep.

Mini Camp

The rain started around 2:30 am. I had put my tent next to me in case that happened and quickly draped it around me and my backpack as a tarp and went back to sleep. This was a good solution for a quick shower, but the rain lasted until the morning and when I woke up, most of my things were wet, either from the rain or condensation under the rain fly of the tent. Worryingly that included my sleeping bag. 

Rough Awakening 

At least it stopped raining and I made some coffee to cheer me up. The sun wouldn’t show and after breakfast I packed up my wet stuff and started hiking. The canyon opened up more and the going was easier for a few miles. Except that the rain had wet the surface of the clay like ground which stuck to my shoes, doubling or even tripling their weight.

Clay

Roger’s joined Sunday Canyon and became Croton Canyon. At that point I had to climb one of its walls to get over into Navajo Canyon which I was to hike up for most of the day. The landscape changed again. The boulders disappeared and made room for a dark grey flat rock that easily disintegrated when I poked it with my hiking poles. It looked very eerie and almost like another planet. 

Near Navajo Canyon 

All of a sudden a very cold gust of wind appeared. While I was still wondering what it meant, the first hail hit me in the face. I had my rain poncho in the brain of my backpack and got it out quickly, but it was hard to put on as it fluttered in the strong wind and the hail kept on coming down very hard. I got very cold by the time I finally had everything on and kept on hiking to warm me up again. Fortunately it didn’t last very long, but it was enough to moisten the ground again and create fresh mud cakes for my shoes.

As Navajo became narrower, sandstone reappeared and so did the obstacles. The previous days had taken their toll and I found it really tiresome to keep climbing around the huge boulders blocking the way. 

Ugh!

At last the sun came out and I stopped to dry my things as good as I could. The sun in the desert is very powerful and I got my sleeping back semi dry in less than an hour. That’s also all I had as the clouds reappeared and I had to quickly pack up and leave.

Late in the afternoon I started climbing out of the canyon and onto a ridge that would bring me to Reese’s Canyon. The wind was blowing and up on the ridge I could see that the whole sky was covered in dark clouds. I could see them dumping rain at random locations on the horizon. I also got a little drizzle, but fortunately nothing more. At that point I just wanted to get into the next canyon, so the wind would let up and I could pitch my tent. The landscape was more open and the canyons wider, so that I was hopeful to be able to catch up on my mileage the following days. 

Above Reese’s Canyon

Finally I made it down Reese’s Canyon, found a flat area big enough to camp, amassed six big rocks to fortify the stakes, got into my tent, closed all doors and vents and finally got out of the wind. I cooked dinner in the tent, crawled into my sleeping bag and passed out. What a day. The scenery had been starkly beautiful. Pleasure and pain, sometimes the same.

I was grateful for the easy terrain the next day as my legs felt heavy. I followed Reese’s to aptly named Last Chance Creek, my first water source in a while and the last one until I hit my cache at the end of this section. It was an intermittent stream, which is quite common here. The water flow appears for a while, then continues underground and reappears a mile or two later. It’s impossible to know when it appears for the last time, so I had to guess when to fill up all my bottles for the next 30 dry miles. I didn’t want to take a risk and filled up when I encountered a beautiful hanging garden, one of those places where water drips from the canyon walls and nurtures all kinds of plants that cling to the wall. 

Last Chance Creek

I also cooked an early dinner there, so I wouldn’t have to carry the cooking water to my next campsite. 

Both Reese's and Last Chance had an interesting geology. The lowest part of the wall consisted of very soft material, looking like compacted sand. On top of that was solid sandstone. As the lower part of the wall corroded, huge parts of the sandstone tumbled into the canyon and stood there like solitary sculptures. 

Ghost Ship 

I camped on an elevated sandy platform next to the wall, one of the nicer camp spots of this section.

The next morning I finished hiking up Last Chance. I was glad that I had already filled my water containers, as the stream first showed orange colored algae and later signs of cattle presence, before disappearing for the last time. There were more and more cattle tracks and as I entered Paradise Canyon, everything was trampled and there were cow pies everywhere. Whoever named this canyon must have visited before the cattle came.

Later I saw a faint dual track, the first sign of civilization, then a cattle fence, then actual cattle. Still no human. I followed the track out of the canyon until it joined a more defined dirt road. By then I had caught up and would easily reach my food and water cache the next day. To reward myself I decided to camp early. Up on the ridge there was no cattle presence and I found a nice campsite between the juniper trees. I laid down on my tarp, watched the clouds and wrote my blog.

Good Morning!

Hiking the 12 miles along the dirt road was easy and I got to my cache just after noon the next day. I had reached my goal of making it from Moab to here only using my caches. I devoured the extra treats I put in the bucket and decided to go another 10 miles to Kodachrome Basin. It looked rainy and I still didn’t have cell service to check the weather for flash flood warnings, so I didn’t want to go into the slot canyons of the next section. They weren’t remote at all and I could easily do this part later when I returned to pick up my caches. I spent the next day wandering around the spires of Kodachrome State Park instead.

Kodachrome Basin

This way I could also make it to the town of Tropic a day early. After a month I was more than ready for a zero, or a day without hiking. One of the ridges in Kodachrome had faint cell service and I booked a room at a motel. To limit road walking I found a route across the landscape that led directly into Cannonville. From there it was around five miles along a major road. These turned out to be the toughest miles of all. On the road I saw some of the lizards that had kept me company over the last weeks, flattened. The banks were littered with bottles, wrappers and all kind of junk. It was very depressing after a month in the wilderness.

When I arrived at my motel I heard someone from the outdoor pool calling my name. I turned and saw Idaho! He, Shower and Medicine Man had arrived earlier that day. It was really nice to see them again and we exchanged our news from the last sections.

Then came a lot of firsts: first look into a mirror in a month, first hot shower, first town food (a burger), first beer, first night in a bed. These are usually not special things in my life, but they felt amazing after this month.

Cheers!

The best thing was a package from my friend Minor, who sent me a new sleeping pad!

Care Package