Thursday, November 16, 2006

A Journey on the Hayduke Trail


Last spring my buddy Daniel and I set out to hike the Hayduke Trail. The challenging backcountry route that traverses from Arches National Park all the way to Zion National Park and includes a lengthy section in the Grand Canyon. We made it 500 miles to Bryce Canyon national park until a knee injury forced us to call it quits. The trip was full of amazing adventures and beautiful scenery. My father drove us down to Utah in his big Dodge 2500 diesel truck and we set out to bury all of our supplies in 5 gallon plastic buckets at various spots in the desert. These were our caches of food supplies that we would come upon periodically to replenish our backpacks with food and water.

When we left Moab to start the trail we were joined by my dad (Dave Colvin) and three of his friends Don, Mike, and Lizard Al who came along with us for the first four nights of the trip. The beginning of the trip was a blast as Daniel and I got to hear all kinds of crazy tales of backcountry adventure from men from a past generation. Everybody on the trip were huge Ed Abbey fans and we all felt like we were chasing the ghost of Ed runnig around the desert.

Daniel and I took off on a short jaunt the first night we were out there up into the slot canyons that were filled with ancient junipers and delicate sands, I felt as if your truly exploring territory that may have never been set foot on. We were climbing and chimneying up and down the rocks and managed to get to the top of a giant rock outcropping for the setting of the sun.

I'll continue blogging the rest of the adventure as time goes on.