Sometimes you just have to swallow your pride. Yep, Ray and I got lost….on a road. We consider ourselves to be expert navigators and have many times been off-trail locating ourselves. Here come the buts: but it was windy and cold today, raining, sleeting, snowing and I put away my phone and app thinking we were on a road and could just follow it. Yeah, right.
We blasted by the road we were supposed to take, heads down to keep the wind out of our faces. I was focusing on the drip off the tip of my nose and how to keep my fingers from going numb. When I finally pulled the phone and app out of my pocket we were 3 miles down the wrong road.
As we stood in the freezing sleet, rain and snow, we considered our options. As you may recall from yesterday, we were down to 1 liter of water each. Ray said maybe he could open his mouth and swallow the sky.
We could go back the 3 miles and take the road into lower Indian Creek like we had planned or we could continue on this dirt road which takes a more convoluted route and requires a 6-mile hike along the paved road into Canyonlands.
We still supposedly had another day to get to the Visitor Center but with the cold wind and sleet, we feel like a stampeding herd of horses headed back to the barn. Ok, maybe a small herd…..
Lost is relative, right. Possibly the result of weathering a storm on a different trail. A phrase like “open your mouth and swallow the sky” makes me pause–so powerful. Please complete your journey safely dear friends, I love you very much.
I also want to thank you for all your insight and for listening to my suffering over martini’s and wine. … feeling better now thanks to you. Big hugs for a safe journey–surrounding you with 👼 angels.
Lydia (aka the chocolate kid)
🙏 ❤️ thank you Lydia!
Looks like those Hokas are not waterproof, but you are wearing big gaiters. Can you enlighten a wanna-be on that choice?
Hey Erik! The gaiters are vertice rain gaiters by zpack. They are very lightweight and are great for walking in wet brush like on the Colorado trail. I combined them with the rain skirt (also from zpack) and it is a very lightweight combo for wet weather (weighs less than rain pants) and allows your legs to breath. I am not a big fan of waterproof hiking shoes/boots as my feet get sweaty in them which gives me blisters. I do think that waterproof shoes would have been good on the Colorado Trail as we got solid rain the last 2 weeks out. I wore Salomon X Ultra Prime hiking shoes on the Colorado Trail and loved them on it but they were the ones that gave me blisters in the sands of Arches NP. I wore the Oboz Sawtooth hiking shoes on the John Muir Trail and really liked them as well. They have solid support and a good insole. I will probably wear them for the Grand Canyon section of the Hayduke.
Thanks for the intel, Kerrie! I’ve been agonizing a bit over both rain kilt/pants and gaiters. I will give these a close look. Walk well!