We got up early to take advantage of the easy traveling while light was low and the day was cool. We powered East into the beautiful sunrise along flat dirt roads. The wind had calmed down since yesterday, making a featureless terrain quite dull. At least the rising sun provided something to look at.
Just before the heat of the day began in earnest we reached Hack Canyon. The road quickly plunged into the Earth, sandstone walls seemed to loom out of nowhere as we strolled along the dry drainage. While we breaked near Hack
Canyon Mine, at perhaps the most remote picnic table on Earth, Sharon read in Ryan Choi’s notes that our next water source, Willow Spring, is “alkaline and radioactive” . . .SHIT! Luckily I had enough water to get to Kunab Creek.
After an hour and a half of walking in “conservation mode,” we reached Willow Spring. If the water was foul, the birds, willows, and almost mutant sized cattails didn’t seem to mind. I tasted the water. It was delicious. Still, I suspected it. However, because of the distance to water in Kanab Creek was uncertain, we each took about a liter or two, as a reserve.
Past the spring, the road was long gone and the trail was intermittent. We walked in the drainage and through the foul flora that populated the wide canyon bottom. The burrs that encase the seeds of these plants seemed to jump onto my socks and wedge themselves into position under the tongue of my shoes, where they cause the most annoyance.
Despite the perturbing plants, I thoroughly enjoyed this section. The redwall cliffs slowly rose around us, the beige sandstone we had been surrounded by the last few hours were slowly hidden from view. In a sense, as we dropped into the canyon, we were getting a chance to watch it form over eons of time. It made me wonder what a human life would look like from the canyon’s perspective. I’m sure we seemed like puny, incredibly short-lived creatures barely worth slightly more than academic interest. Mountains only seem massive and permanent, because we are so small and fleeting by comparison. Just as bacteria seem small and fleeting to us because we are large and live for decades. It’s a matter of perspective.
Oh look water! We had walked down Kanab Canyon for about an hour before we reached dome small puddles, which grew steadily larger for a while, making us think that water was going to make a rapid transition (once again) from sought after necessity to obstacle. Unfortunately, after we passed Chamberlain Canyon, we saw no more water.
We, eventually, stopped just upstream from the park boundary of Jumpup canyon. We are camped on a sanding beach above the creek bed in a small clearing surrounded by thorny bushes and cacti. Another amazing day.
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