Hayduke Day 30: Cold morning on the Paria

LOL, everything is frozen!

My socks are frisbees, my shoes are ice blocks, our sleeping bag is laced with frost. How did I sleep through an ice event last night?

I put on these frozen articles, with force, and immediately face my first of a fifteen river crossings only a few steps from camp, before I have a chance to generate any internal heat, all in the dank shadows of a canyon.

Let me tell you.

The discomfort born out of that combo of conditions is exquisite. After the first crossing, I shed cold animal tears. I tell Weekend (with unnecessary harshness) I will not do the next crossing, I’ll find a way around. But there is no way around. Commence Double Happiness meltdown.

The meltdown crests. And then, after fifteen minutes and seven more crossings, it recedes. Underneath it, a harder more resilient version of me is waiting.

This is part of what I am addicted to about thru hiking. That I can experience such an intolerable low and have no distraction from noticing how quickly it changes into something else.

Now the morning is cold, yes, but manageable. I splish through the Paria without wincing and celebrate the first slant of sunlight I reach by standing still in it until I feel its thin heat work itself thru the weave of my clothing. We’ve got you.

First slant of sunshine

Along the Paria, we find the panels of petroglyphs marked on our maps. A maze of thinly carved, wavy lines, connecting and bisecting different shapes. Meanwhile, the cliffs along the canyon have their own line that bisects 100s of feet of red rock, below 100s of feet of white rock. What geological event had to happen for this abrupt change from red to white? Weekend and I speculate.

If you zoom in you might make out the petroglyph lines

How’d you get to be the way you are?

We later connect with Willis Creek, which closes in and works itself into some excellent narrows. We’re winding through it, when who appears behind a bend… Yeti! “What took you so long?” He howls and laughs. This is our greeting everytime. What a charmed way to hike the ‘Dookie.

Yeti drives us up to Tropic. We check into the Red Ledges Inn. We have dinner with our trail family that’s formed: us, Silver Bullet, Yeti and his wife Melanie. Cold animal tears feel a world away.

Willis Creek Narrows