On May 18th I did 14.5 miles to Water Canyon. On May 19th I did 18.7 miles to the East Fork of the Virgin River. On May 20th I did 12.9 miles to Pine Creek in Zion NP. On May 21st I did 22.7 Miles to Lava Point in Zion NP. On May 22nd I did 21.9 miles to Lee Pass and finished the Hayduke.
Listen to “Vagabond” by Caamp. Often times the word vagabond is used in a slightly negative connotation, I personally think that people are just jealous of freedom.
After walking across the Arizona Strip, we hit highway 389 and did a 7-mile road walk into Colorado City, AZ. CO City has a pretty crazy past (you should google it) and 10 years ago hikers would not have been a welcome sight in town. The town today still has an odd feeling to it, but the people were friendly. We made our way to a brewery where we spent several hours hiding from the heat of the day and enjoying ourselves. We ended up hiking out 3 miles past town, loaded with a few road beers, a couple of pounds of candy, and blasting Latin dance hits... I think we were in a celebratory mood.
The next day was relatively chill as we made our way over a small mountain range and followed some double track to the Barracks. We caught glimpses of some amazing rock formations as we dropped into the canyon and meet up with the East Fork of the Virgin River. The river was flowing crystal clear, but there is serious concern about toxic cyanobacteria in a lot of the water in and around Zion. We ended up dropping our packs and walking upstream to collect water from a side canyon hoping to lessen the chances of getting the toxic bacteria. As we made our way through the riparian zone we came across two large rock walls full of petroglyphs, one with a giant bear paw that I really liked.
The next day was a super fun day in the Barracks. The Barracks is a nickname given to Parunuweap Canyon (Parunuweap was also the original name of the National Monument before it became a National Park and was renamed Zion). The canyon was about 4 miles long and the water could get well over 6 or 7 feet deep but we were able to navigate down the river on sandbars and ledges. It took us 6 hours to do the 4 miles and we were having so much fun. At times the canyons got narrow and were reminiscent of Buckskin Gulch but with fast-moving water. It would be our last water adventure of the trip so we really soaked it in (pun intended). We climbed up a wall out of the Barracks and started to make our way north on sandy trail and slickrock. We eventually broke into Zion, the 6th and final National Park, and around 4 pm we hit HWY 9 which is the unofficial end of the Hayduke. The official end to the unofficial trail is Weeping Rocks in Zion but because of two huge landslides in 2018 Weeping Rock has been closed and without a new Terminus, many Haydukers call it at HWY 9. Sprinkler and I took a celebratory photo, and yogied a beer from a tourist but ending at a highway didn't seem like a great finish. So it was decided we would make Lee Pass in the Northwest Corner of the park our end point.
It was a 12-mile road walk on HWY 9 to get to the West Rim/Bright Angel Trail Head. We had to walk through two tunnels to get there the first tunnel was 900 feet long and we just ran for it hoping not to meet a car in the middle of the tunnel. The other tunnel was 1.1 miles long so we stealth camped near its entrance and got up super early so we could walk through it without having to play chicken with a car. We eventually made it into the heart of the park and were surrounded by smelly tourists (you can actually smell people's laundry detergent after being out for a month). After passing by the turn-off for Bright Angel the trail almost cleared out completely and we had absolutely stunning views of Zion from its West Rim. Zion was relatively chill. The hiking was easy and at times we had grand views of the rock formations and at times we were hiking in forests of scrub oak. It was a bigger day getting into the backcountry which had us stealth camping at Lava Point (permits are the arch-nemesis of thru-hikers). From Lava Point, we had 22 miles to Lee Pass. Initially, we planned to break it up into 2 short days since we didn't want to have a huge day in the end and have a late finish but since the terrain turned out to be easy we went for it. We got up at 4 am to a very cold last morning on the trail (my coffee froze) and headed out via headlamp. It's always a weird feeling ending a trail. I got us turned around by going down the wrong canyon (we decided to just go for it and follow the canyon instead of the trail which lead to some interesting downclimbs). We were definitely moving with the intention of hoping to finish before dark so it would be easy to hitch out of the park. I guess we were really pushing it because by 330p we had done 21.9 miles and reached Lee Pass finishing the Hayduke. The Hayduke surpassed all expectations it was definitely an emotional finish.
……
Did I seek out one of the hardest adventures I could find just to see what would happen... yes. Did I think at times I would quit... yes. Did at times think I was actually going to die out here... yes. Would I do this hike again... hell yes!
It was a crazy journey, and I left out some of the extreme stuff because my mom reads this blog and I don't want her to worry any more than she already does but there were some other moments on the trail that left me speechless and happy that I got to watch the sun come up the next day.
As always it was a spiritual journey too, with a lot of self work done in the canyons and a lot of lessons learned. A lot of what I learned is more of a feeling of peace and not easy to put into words but there were two overarching motifs to my experience.
We all die, none of us make it out alive. We worry about losing things and cling to what we do have, but in the end, we are going to eventually lose it all anyways. So why not take chances? Go for it and see what happens, you really have nothing to lose, because it's all temporary anyway.
Life isn't about perfection, it’s about learning, growing, and doing, and should be a little messy. Focusing on the past just steals from the present and doing what you want. Don't look back on the past for any reason other than to bring lessons learned forward and don't worry about “what ifs” and longing for a "redo", you got a redo when you woke up again this morning.
