HAYDUKE Trail Journal -- Day 1: 9/29/09

I slept surprisingly well in the airport parking lot. I slept from the moment I laid down to the moment the first plane, private, took off. The woman at the counter told me the first flight from Salt Lake City would arrive at 8:45 am, so I wandered back outside, wondering how to most efficiently kill an hour and a half.

The St. George airport sits on a large, but low Mesa above the town. From the edge of the parking lot, I could see the whole place. A gentleman had walked up to watch the sun rise over the mountains, across the city from us. I asked him how to get to the closest grocery store.

I dropped down towards the town, while the sun climbed up over the far ridge, already yellow and bright by the time it revealed itself due to the height of the ridge (or depth of the valley). The sun cleared the mountains as I walked into the grocery store, grabbing breakfast and rations for the next two days.

By the time I made it back to the airport, my bag was waiting. Yes! I grabbed it and booked to the post office, anxious to get started. I mailed my carry-on items back home and started down the main drag toward I-15. Thirty minutes later with the highway in sight, I noticed I didn’t have my camera with me. Shit! I ran, literally, back to the post office, incredulous at my own stupidity. I must have left it on the counter. I got lucky the time the teller knew exactly what I was talking about. Relieved more than I ought to have been about a camera, I walked back to the highway, but not before eating a 14-inch pizza and making a “Kalob Canyon” sign. I was posted at the onramp for only 15 minutes before I got my ride.

Ted drove a ’95 Eagle mini-van, the smallest mini-van I’d ever seen. It sounded like a jackhammer and was filled with detritus from years of wandering, but it got me to the visitor center, for which I will be forever grateful. Ted had been heading for Leeds, but he took me the extra 25 miles to my exit. What a great guy!

I filled my bottle and started walking. Surprisingly, I didn’t get a lift on the ramp; I ended up walking 4 miles to Lee Pass. La Verkin creek was very nice. The quacking aspens lived up to their names in the stiff breeze and afternoon sun. The cool water was a refreshing replacement to the water I was carrying, which had been cooking for hours in the sun. I took a short side trip to visit Kolab Arch (one of the largest in the world). It was very large but not particularly beautiful. It was so close to its source cliff that it is difficult at first to tell that it actually is an arch rather than a massive rock.

Leaving the arch, I climbed out from La Verkin Creek to Hob Valley. The creek was dry at first. This worried me, I had been counting on water in the valley, so I had left La Verkin Creek with only a liter. I soon became even more worried when, as soon as the creek started flowing. I saw the unmistakable signs of cattle upstream. Everyone tends to forget something on a backpacking trip, no matter how experienced; usually it’s something minor. Unfortunately, I had been so accustomed to not treating my water these days that I had actually forgotten my water treatment. This put me into a bit of a predicament. The nest sure water source wasn’t until after Sawmill Spring, 15 miles away. I finally decided to conserve the relatively clean water I had, while taking a liter of “cow” water as a reserve. Meanwhile, I plowed ahead through what would have been a charming valley, if not for the bovine blight that had been let loose to scourge the land. I kept walking until 10:00, taking advantage of the gibbous moon and cool evening temperatures.