Day 29 – 4/11/16
19.7 map (+10 round trip to cache – 7 walked/3 hitched) / 30.1 GPS miles (-3 hitched = 27.1 walked)
443.3 / 483.1 miles total

A long day that turned out to be quite fun! Bubs and I left camp earlier than usual this morning, leaving Joey to sleep in and go on his own way. 
Bubs and I buried a food and water cache back in early March, trying to get to the Round Valley Draw trailhead. But a tiny washout with a trickle of water seemed too risky in my Toyota Matrix, so we left the cache about 5 miles away from our Hayduke route. This didn’t seem like a big deal at the time, knowing that we were breaking up what would otherwise be a 10 day food carry. 

However, most of the miles this leg have gone really quickly, and it’s looking like our town to town total will only be 7 days instead of the originally budgeted 10 day.  It now seems silly to have to make a 10 mile round trip off route for a food drop. Hindsight. 

 

 
Anyway, we walked 6 miles, passing Grosvenor arch in the way, then another 5 on a dirt road to our cache. We would’ve gladly hitched the 5 miles to the cache but there was absolutely no traffic whatsoever. I chose to slack pack the walk to the cache and left most of my gear hidden in the bushes at our departure from the Hayduke. Bubs opted to carry her entire pack and dry out her very wet and frozen tent and sleeping bag while we lunched at the cache.

Resupplied, we turned around and headed back to the Hayduke, which of course was now all uphill. About 3 miles left to go, we totally lucked out when Becky and Jim, a couple visiting from Colorado, drove by and offered us a ride. Woohoo!! Our spirits were much lifted! Thank you!
Back at the trail, I packed up my stashed gear, and with 1.7 miles of road walk left, decided to dry out my tent en route. 

 

 
Now came the exciting part – a slot canyon! Unlike yesterday’s, we knew this one was the intended route and ought to go through, or else we were in trouble. Mothers, hide your eyes.  

The narrows were so fun! We had to take off our packs a few times, but it was mostly pretty easy. 

 

 
 

 

 

 

 
  

 
After a mile or so the canyon gradually opened and we continued following it for the rest of the day. Oh, and it didn’t rain on us!