Day 21 – 4/3/16
17.0 map / 21.8 GPS miles
310.5 / 330.7 miles total

This morning we said goodbye to Joey and finished up our last 2 miles walking in Grand Gulch, which is a just a really big wash running north/south for a long ways.

Then we had something like a 2,200′ climb up Red Slide that followed a “very eroded mining track”, which turned out to be way better than some of the nonexistent cattle paths we’ve been told to follow. The track ended as soon as we got to the old mine property sign, about halfway into the climb.

 

climb up Red Slide – great view of the Henrys and Grand Gulch

Then we started some more difficult cross country, which led to us frequently uttering “this is nonsense.”*

We finally reached the pass, only to descend a bunch more nonsense* down into Moody Canyon.

 

 

 

Yesterday we met a couple at the Muley Twist trailhead who greeted us, “Hello happy Haydukers!” The gentleman had actually hiked part of the trail last year and complained of the miserable mud in Moody Canyon, so we were a bit worried we’d have a rough 12 miles in the canyon. Thankfully, it was quite dry, though there was still plenty of nonsense* piles of house size rocks jammed together blocking the way, and puddles of mud in places we needed to jump down to. Here’s a photo series of how canyons work:

 

 

 

Our maps note reliable water should be “running” the last 3 miles of the canyon. Instead all we got, even just a mile from the end, were little puddles surrounded by white, a likely indicator of alkaline water. We filled up tonight anyway, in preparation for tomorrow’s packraft of the Escalante, which rivals the Dirty Devil in desirability as drinking water. What nonsense*!

 

 

*we didn’t actually use the word nonsense.