day 8 (3/27): The outpost

[photos and reference links coming in May]

Not a gust stirred the tarp all night. The Loop was kinder and gentler in the morning. I called goodbye and made my way up a flattening wash with Woodhouse’s scrub jay, pinyon jay, the usual suspects, and the best cryptobiotic gardens I’ve seen yet. Oops, now I only have 7 film photos left for the 7+ days left to my box in Hanksville. On the edge of the Lower Jump (a little detour to a huge pouroff) I hear a surge of air and two white-throated swifts shoot over my shoulder, almost knocking me into the gulf.

At the Needles Outpost I’m the 10th signature in the Hayduke log for 2022. Jamal Green is in here! So is Wyoming, reputedly the first woman to solo the trail. So cool. I meet my first fellow Hayduker, Lucky Man, just as he’s walking out. He’s retired and talkative and one of those people who make a lifestyle of thruhiking. I walk inside and asked the woman behind the desk, “Are you Amber?” She says yes, surprised. All the Hayduke blogs talk about how Amber and Caleb, the owners here, are great. Their reputation precedes them.

Apparently my untrustworthy thermometer hasn’t been far wrong. It has indeed been in the 80’s the last few days! Amber says other Haydukers have all said they found less water than expected. I’m trying to get a sense of how many of us there are, but forgot to ask how many others have come through this season or what proportion mail boxes vs. buy food in the little store. People in the hiker log raved about the hiker box and a quasi-mythical cave on this property that everyone since Carrot Quinn says you have to camp in. Unfortunately there’s no cave camping anymore, to preserve Caleb and Amber’s privacy and because it’s a storage space now. And the hiker box was mostly cleaned out. I don’t need four tampons in a Ziploc or a leaking bag of brown mystery powder.

A guy named John in a “Preserve Public Lands” tee and sunglasses just came over to the picnic table (the luxury!) where I’m writing. “Young man with no car, you’re the most interesting person in this campground!” We talked for five minutes. I love this about long hikes — the universal interest people take in someone traveling merely on foot; how regular human interaction turns sweet amidst the everyday of solitude. It’s hard to explain the pleasure of human interaction without sounding overly earnest.

Amber rang up my food resupply by writing down everything in a ledger by hand. No POS machine here. It cost $116, including the night’s camping. Next time I’d send a box, but I don’t regret doing it this way. I spend a few hours on the porch of the store, doing chores and listening to people inside talk about the best books on the area and places to find archaeological sites nearby. Wish I could be them, stay and enjoy it all. “You know we do work-for-stay,” Amber tells me as she closes the shop. Tempting….

…and now it’s 1130PM. Looks like tomorrow I’m cleaning bathrooms and exploring the Needles. Tonight my face touched water for the first time in 4 days, felt like 2 weeks. It’s colder than the last few nights. I’m uncomfortable walking back to my campsite in hiking clothes and my puffy.

My new Enlightened Equipment quilt had a peculiar smell, like the inside of a dried hollow ostrich egg (if you’ve ever smelled one). Now as I get inside it smells like campfire smoke. Yuck. Well, it made it through Section 2 smelling pristine.

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