Sand Collection
Going through photos from my Spring 2016 900-mile hike over the Colorado Plateau. I really liked their sand collection at Coral Pink, with bottles from all over the world. Like spices.
Category : Hayduke
I hiked this trail in Spring 2016 and again in Fall 2017. Then I hiked my own version of it in 2019. It was fun.
From the back cover of the book that started it all:
Traversing six national parks (Arches, Canyonlands, Capitol Reef, Bryce, Grand Canyon, Zion), a national recreation area, a national monument, and various wilderness, primitive, and wilderness study areas, the Hayduke Trail is a challenging, 800-mile backcountry route on the Colorado Plateau. Whimsically named for a character in Edward Abbey’s The Monkey Wrench Gang, the trail begins in Arches National Park and ends in Zion National Park, stays entirely on public land, and traverses the complete variety of terrain available to hikers on the Plateau short of technical climbing.
Joe Mitchell and Mike Coronella pioneered Hayduke after concluding that a long trail—such as the Appalachian or Pacific Crest— was possible on the Plateau, thus introducing more people to these unique and threatened public lands. The Hayduke Trail includes detailed maps of the entire route, suggested cache points, and a wealth of description and tips for tackling this intense undertaking.
No Comment
Ultra runner on the Zion Rim trail: “You thru-hiking?” “Yep.” UR: “Where you headed to tonight?” “I’ll probably finish.” (A lie. I have learned to not tell people where I’m going to sleep.) UR: “Oh well, that’s a ways… But you might be able to do it if you skip Kolob Arch, that’s half a… continue reading
Rattler vs. Squirrel
Showdown! Cute squirrel v. baby Grand Canyon Rattlesnake. Who has the scarier tail?
No Angel
How to have Angel’s Rest in Zion National Park all to yourself for coffee in the morning on Memorial Day weekend: 1) start hiking up at 5:30am 2) tell the 3 people you find up top that a ranger (true) is checking out their illegally (true) parked cars. 👋🏼
Stung by a Bark Scorpion
Nobody told me Instagram upped its video length limit from 15 to 60 seconds! So here you have almost my entire reality TV diary-style scorpion video from a week ago. Before I was stung that night I was only worried about flash floods coming down the Kanab Creek (a real danger, and what I’m alluding… continue reading
Zion
…Sort of like this is a dream. Is it? Zion somehow still has my favorite flower of the route (and author Ed Abbey’s fave too, as you would have it) in bloom, and I have a little blue sky before the black clouds sweep in and I get wet with rain and tears at the… continue reading
Untitled
There are certain sacrifices you make to walk long distances through the wilderness and pretty feet are one of them. But I still adore my feet no matter how they look; they’re troopers and they’ll take me anywhere. 800 miles no blisters and no fractures. And no water to wash them with tonight. 😝 LUV… continue reading
Untitled
Two months ago I drove from Las Vegas to Moab, placing four food/water caches strategically spaced along my hiking route. That allowed me to hike continuously without going into a town for the first 19 days*. I placed one of my caches here in a wash near Hanksville UT, with a view of Mt. Ellen,… continue reading
Fumarase Deficiency
People ask me all the time, “Aren’t you afraid of X/Y/Z (animal) alone in the woods?” And I say over and over again, I’m much more scared of PEOPLE. And I thought I just left Colorado City but hiking out I realize I still have to walk through another fundamentalist neighborhood in the boonies (pictured… continue reading