Day 37 – 4/19/16
? map / 13.2 GPS miles
571.4 / 613.5 miles total

On the Utah-Arizona border, just off the official Hayduke route, there’s this awesome rock formation known “The Wave”. It’s on BLM land and requires a permit that’s pretty much impossible to get because it’s limited to 20 people per day and is insanely popular. Half the permits are issued online 3 months in advance. Bubs and I both applied back in January and lost (we had something like a 2% chance). The other half of the permits are issued the day before at an in person lottery drawing at multimillion dollar the BLM office on Kanab. They have lots of money because you have to pay $5 just to enter the online lottery.

This morning, we decided to try our luck at the in person lottery. What a circus. Exactly 100 people showed up for the 10 spots. We must’ve used up the last of our luck on Bingo, because we lost.
Oh well.

We got breakfast and took care of a few other town chores and suddenly it was already 1:00pm when we got our thumbs out on the edge of town. After 30 minutes a very nice German couple picked us up and delivered us on the edge of the highway where we’d left off.

The first day out of town always seems slow and sluggish. We plodded away in the upper reaches of Buckskin Gulch. Before it slots up forever, it’s more of an open, sandy wash.

After crossing a road 8 miles in, we reached the Buckskin Gulch trailhead. Beyond this point, things are heavily regulated and permitted. It was already late and we didn’t want to deal with it, so we road walked another ~4 miles to a spot near the Wire Pass trailhead where we camped for the night.