[photos and reference links coming in May]
Great walking weather today — cumulus, shining and dark in the same flotilla sweeping across the sky. “Good luck on the trail, man,” says Caleb. “Be safe and take care.” Last night I dreamed I was a soldier, bullet fodder. Then I was in the Alaska Mountain Wilderness Classic with Andrew Skurka, except it also had a lot of road walking.
Filled all 4 of my Platys to the max at the park campground, the last source for I don’t really know how long… after the Indian Creek experience a few days ago, I don’t trust anything until Dark Canyon. But I’ll need water before then, even with the 9+ liters I’m carrying. Please understand I am being drizzled on as I write this. I need this rain to replenish my water sources for the next ~50 miles south of here. The thing is, I have no way of knowing if it will. So I’m carrying who knows how many pounds (look it up, easy calculation) of water, the most I’ve ever hiked with, into a rainstorm.
It’s gotten cold in the last 15 minutes. I’ve never seen a National Park as empty as this one, today. This rain is good, even though my instincts tell me to take shelter, get warm. The slickrock is shimmering, weeping, my pack is uncomfortable. I dump out one liter. I’m walking past spattering pouroffs, big healthy junipers and Gambel oak and pinyon, mountain mahogany bedazzled with spring’s new leaves, and wonder of wonders: a babbling brown stream in the normally dry wash bottom. Some Japanese fantasia.
Chesler Park — a great ring of faces, hundreds of them, all turned toward the center of the meadow where I stand. Mountain bluebirds, some kind of sapsucker off in a juniper grove, and dark-eyed junco (or chipping sparrow). This has been the most astounding day so far. I’ve climbed through pink and yellow psychedelic playgrounds and lost my way in grottoes.
This tarp and I are developing a losing record together. I found a decent, 8/10 overhang as thunder rumbled, but it took me over an hour to get the thing up in a limp lean-to style pitch, as lighting bolts lit up the whole scene. Luckily the overhang protected me and my stuff. I’m doing another Barthe alternate, up Chesler Canyon instead of the lower third of Butler Wash. The weather today was just about exactly what I wanted: rain, but not enough to freeze me and make me miserable. The Needles area is amazing, I don’t know how to describe it. I must come back to hike more and explore! I find it very difficult to believe in God in normal life, but out here I almost can’t help it.
My overhang has as much old dry cow shit as dirt. Maybe this was a homestead before the National Park. They can’t get in now, right? I didn’t know poop could survive so long.