Little Package Blog

A Lollipop
2016.04.20
Hayduke, Latergram
Today’s road walk, coincidentally stoned on 4/20 thanks to a 4 year-old lollipop, has been grounding and good for the feet. My shoes have dried quicksand stuck in the fabric layers so road walking lets me wear my slippers and rest the poor toes. What with my $5 white sunglasses and white foam slippers I probably look like something out of Burroughs. In a few minutes I’ll be half way done with this incredible trek. That makes me happy and sad. Oh look there’s a car at the bottle of this cliff! I was just gifted an orange and by another person, and orange Gatorade. Best high ever. Happy 4:20

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Remote Cows
Hayduke, Latergram
Cows run this place. Sprained my ankle the other day when a gigantic muscular bull (like you’d see in a bullfight ring) came out of the trees grunting and huffing. I was scared but he was more scared of me as it turned out. Grand Staircase Escalante is a national monument but ranchers still have permits to graze their stock, so it’s tough finding clean-ish water and shade on route without cow patties (but the pack trails are great! These cows really know the area!)

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Dirty Devil
Hayduke, Latergram
My first step into the Dirty Devil went up to my hips. I turned right around and walked an extra 5 or so miles to avoid crossing it numerous times. This is the view down on it from old uranium mine roads. It seemed to be flowing hard and is said to be unpredictable with quicksand too. I just wasn’t mentally prepared to tackle it alone. Like I said in an earlier post today, I have a little issue with walking in rivers. I opted for the psychedelic (awesoooooooooome) Hatch Canyon route, and came down to my ONE Dirty Devil crossing that night. I didn’t have courage; I slept on it. That night a truck pulled up on my side. Bruce and Lani had taken 4×4 roads […]

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Dimonds
Hayduke, Latergram
How am I going to get into town from the middle of nowhere? Oh I know! I’m going to meet a family of Dimond alumni from Anchorage, Alaska. I am Dimond alumni (freshman, sophomore). I was big into cross country skiing and raced state at Kincaid, as well, so these sweatshirts were just blowing my mind. I got to ride in the back of a pickup 35 miles down a dirt road with these awesome Alaskans. And then their dad bought me pizza. How does this happen?! 😍😍

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Free Flow Dance
Hayduke, Latergram
Some free flow dancing after finishing up wading down the Escalante River yesterday. I’m not scared of many things but rivers over knee-deep have almost claimed a couple friends of mine (as I watched) and I have a deep respect for their power. The Escalante was pretty low but mostly opaque and with patches of shallow quicksand. I was alone so there was nobody to laugh it off with. My anxiety was high and I had to talk myself through it; I even sobbed in gleeful relief when I discovered my phone had fallen out of my pack 20 yards back and not a mile upstream as I feared. It took all my nerve to do it once, and to do it again for a phone? I […]

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Escalante Admirer
2016.04.13
Hayduke, Latergram
Had I known I was being watched from above, this moment’s tension would have shattered. I was leaving my nice eagle’s nest view/rest spot below Stevens Arch because I’d realized I had dropped my phone somewhere along my walk down the Escalante River. I had bolstered all my courage to wade the thigh-deep waters, and now I was bolstering more to head back and do it twice more. First I had to walk straight down off the wall. (But that doesn’t scare me – fast-moving water scares me.) My “secret admirer” captured my descent. I found my phone in the bushes at left. Then I’m sure I did a little dance and wept a little. And I was being watched. It’s weird to think about. I found […]

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Out There
Hayduke, Latergram
Proof I’m doing just fine. 20 days without a shower, 17 days without a town stop, hiking solo. Almost wishing I could do this whole thing without stopping in town, but also sort of looking forward to a shampoo and some light beer. Here I’m atop the Waterpocket Fold, with Navajo Mountain and Lake Powell in the background, behind me — to the south. Doing great! (Total tally at town day (4/14) is 22 days without a shower and 19 days without a town stop.)

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Storm on the Henries
2016.04.09
Hayduke, Latergram
I hustled off the mountain (South Mt Ellen Summit, 11,400ft) because I saw this coming. When it hit it was drizzly at first, and I kept moving away from its dark core the best I could. But then suddenly another darker cloud came from the opposite direction and slammed hard with hail and flooding. When it hit I was in a perfect slickrock high spot with good drainage. So I called myself lucky, even though I got soaked. The next morning Mt Ellen was dappled with snow again. El Niño is busy in South Utah, too!

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