Needles to Hite - Prolonged Honeymoon

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I stayed a night at the Needles Outpost campground, mainly because it is the only place I could get WiFi. There hasn’t been any cell service since and I am writing this offline to be published later.

Needles Outpost

I headed into Canyonlands National Park with a backpacking permit to Salt Creek Canyon, an alternate to the original Hayduke. It makes this section of the hike 25 miles longer and I’m glad I had planned for an extra day of food in my package to the outpost.

I had chosen this alternate because it has more available water. This year is exceptionally dry and I made water availability a priority. The canyon was inhabited for millennia and I found pictographs on the canyon walls in several locations. It’s said that the natives left the area some 600 years ago, yet the pictographs and petroglyphs endure. With one exception, their location is not published in order to protect them. Finding them by accident was more exciting anyway.


Pictographs

I also found remnants of an old cabin near Kirk Spring, showing early settler activity in the area. 


Kirk Spring Cabin

It took me two days to hike the canyon. Apart from the cold nights the weather was very nice, sunny and not too hot during the day. Also, this was an actual trail, unlike many other parts of the Hayduke. It is one of the popular sections which means I met two other hiking parties (not Haydukers) per day versus none. 


Salt Creek Canyon

This section ended with a climb up to Salt Creek Mesa which had amazing views over the entire area. I cowboy camped at the ridge to enjoy the view in the morning.


Good Morning!

The next day I followed a dirt road which kept climbing to 8400’ where the air started to get thin and pine forest replaced the juniper trees dominant at lower elevations. I filled my water at the well marked Crystal Spring. I camped just above the entrance to Trail Canyon and found a nice perch on a rock for dinner and breakfast.


Camping Bliss

I dropped into Trail Canyon and further on into Dark Canyon. I lost all the elevation I had gained and then some. The bottom of Dark Canyon is just over 4000’ and has a beautiful stream flowing through it that enables ample vegetation. With flowers blooming and bees humming it felt like a different world. 


Springtime 

I did not see a soul and very few footprints on the first day, but on the second, after my alternate merged with the original Hayduke Route, I found three fellow Haydukers lounging on the bank of the stream, Medicine Man, Shower and Idaho. Quite a few people hike the entire route without ever encountering a fellow Hayduker. Finding these kindred souls made the hike feel even more real for me. We leapfrogged each other throughout the day. They hiked out of the canyon early the next morning, but I was reluctant to leave this beautiful place and stayed a few more hours to explore. When I finally made the brutal climb out, I started to understand why there weren’t more people in the canyon. 

At that point I was in much better hiking shape compared to the beginning of my hike. The miles and elevation gain came a lot easier.

Still, the climb out was a 1200’ scramble that took me three hours. I had not anticipated it to be so long and steep, but the jaw dropping views made up for the effort. 


After The Climb

I still had to cover 14 miles to my supply cache in Hite. While I had an emergency dinner left in case I wouldn’t make it, I much preferred to have a real meal. I arrived just before it got completely dark and found my bucket intact. It was not as exciting as having a town day with restaurant visits, showers and real beds, but still pretty satisfying to see that my plan was working. I was too exhausted to put up my tent and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky, so I cowboy camped.


Dinner Time



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