The Hayduke Trail is an ~800 mile backcountry route through the Colorado Plateau. It’s not some official, nationally designated trail. It’s just the brainchild of a couple of guys (Joe Mitchell and Mike Coronella) who love the area, put together a route, and wrote a guidebook about it. It goes through 6 National Parks (Arches, Canyonlands, Captiol Reef, Bryce, Grand Canyon and Zion) as well as Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, and probably a bunch of other things I don’t even know about yet. See the general overview map below (from postholer.com). The blue line is the “official” guidebook designated route. The red lines are popular alternate routes.
We are most certainly embracing alternates, both in terms of route and mode of travel. But, we don’t want to give to much away ahead of time! So, I won’t post our full, detailed map until we are finished, but I’ll be updating this one with our daily location as we go. Spoiler: there will be packrafting!
The official route is about 800 miles long. With our alternates it will be significantly longer, and with much of the route being difficult, off-trail terrain, our miles will be slower than a trail such as the PCT or CDT. We expect to take about 2.5 months to complete our route.
Planning has been a lot of work. There are a ton of logistics involved in this hike, and doubly so because of all our alternate/added fun. Going through all those National Parks also means a ton of permit hassle, and we’re doing our best to comply. I’m not going to get into logistics details. My good friend Wired hiked this trail last year and put together a really great resource/info page. It answers just about every question. Thanks, Wired!
We are also planning to cache food buckets to reduce some of the longer food carries. While this isn’t absolutely necessary, it will make the trip more comfortable and enjoyable for us. The dehydrator ran nonstop for about a week at my house. I’m really excited about eating chili with cornbread crumble on the trail!
And since I didn’t have too much to do already with this trip coming up, I decided to make a new backpack for this trip. I’m pretty excited about it; it actually turned out really well. It’s mostly based off an older version of the Gossamer Gear Mariposa, but has some custom features like the super awesome map access hole.
We will be leaving Portland on March 8 and start hiking on March 14. And some more exciting news: Rockin‘ will be joining us during her spring break! It’s gonna be so much fun!!!
Hmmmm… hiking from Canyonlands to Capitol Reef National Parks through canyons, climbing mountain ranges, and up and yonder over dale, now that sounds like a mighty fine spring break!!!! I will just have to experience the pack rafting virtually through your blog. Now that will be fun.
So almost all my prep is done, EXCEPT I need to secure a shuttle on March 19th from Capitol Reef to Canyonlands. Anyone out there know of a service that shuttles hikers in that area?
Google returns a lot of companies that will do shuttles in Moab. Though I’m guessing they’d be pretty pricey for going that far. Maybe try asking on Facebook if anyone in that area would be willing to do it for a reasonable fee?
Makin’ your own packs now. That’s cool. I hope the three of you have an amazing time. I do try to keep up on these things, so I may be a little slow on the uptake but I don’t know or don’t recognize the third person on this journey. I assume it’s the pig-tailed person in the raft? Trail name?
Oh, BTW, have a great trip!
Whoops! I didn’t even realize that I didn’t introduce Bubs (Bubbles)! We both hiked the PCT in 2011 and we’ve done lots of little weekend adventures together since. She’s a great partner – a strong hiker, very organized, and super fun!
I can vouch for the super fun part! Well, all three, but ESPECIALLY the super fun. You ladies will have a great trip!!
Wahoo!!!
HDT Day is rapidly approaching! In NY, wishing everyone safe travels and raftloads of smiles with those miles. Can’t wait to read more about this adventure!
Thanks for the kind words and support. We can’t wait to share it with you! May our Hayduke adventure protect you from making the same mistakes we end up making when you make this trip yourself someday!
I so wish you, bubbles and Rockin’ a wonderful and safe hike! There is nothing like canyon country 🙂
Katie I love hearing about your hikes from your Mother. Want to wish you nice weather, lots of good times and enjoy those snacks-they sound good to me too. Thanks for sharing your trip with me/us. David & Mary Boone
Good luck!