Tuesday, August 27, 2024

Lakes and Puddles

The Uintas are a backpacker's paradise. A half-million acre Wilderness area protects the majority of the high country. A well-developed network of trails spiderwebs the range. Outside of a couple Instagram-famous spots, solitude is assured, even on a beautiful summer weekend. Extensive alpine basins lend themselves to limitless wandering. It's easy to see why the Uintas have served as my 'home' mountain range for more than a decade.

This summer, I've been spending much of my usual Uintas time elsewhere, namely on the Western Slope of Colorado. My girlfriend Steph (trail name: Calzone) lives at the foot of the San Juan Mountains, a truly outstanding range in its own right. We've spent many a weekend exploring the San Juans together, and I've taken a couple solo trips in the area as well. Aside from the Continental Divide Trail's narrow corridor, the state of Colorado is largely new to me. What a treat to explore a new place!

But the Uintas will always hold a special place in my heart. Accordingly, Steph and I invested an August weekend in a quick loop in the eastern part of the range. We glimpsed more lakes (at least a dozen) than other backpackers (eight, all Uinta Highline Trail hikers).

Exposed to the Elements

After a utilitarian Friday night camp at the trailhead, we began our trek with a few miles on the famous Uinta Highline Trail. I hadn't hiked this stretch of the UHT since before the pandemic, and it was a delight to revisit it. We meandered our way through a few lovely meadows and past a series of lakes before we began the long climb up to North Pole Pass.

By 12,000-foot pass standards, North Pole is pretty kind. Although the climb seemed to last forever, the grade remained gentle. The wind, however, was not so cooperative. Once we emerged above treeline, a frigid gale smacked us in the face. The stronger gusts occasionally staggered us as we worked our way over the broad plateau that comprises North Pole Pass. We had to scream to be heard over the roar of the wind and the flapping of my windshirt, which Steph likens to a bag of Doritos in both sound and appearance :)

Photo: Stephanie Seitz

But my oh my, what a view from the pass! North Pole looks west toward the highest axis of the Uintas - the Kings-Emmons ridge, home to about half of Utah's 13,000-foot peaks. A fleet of cumulus raced across the sky at highway speeds, sideswiping those high peaks along the way. Delightful lakes glittered below. A few moments of sunshine made the scene surreal.

As we descended the pass, bowl-like topography funneled all the wind into one narrow jet. At times, it threatened to knock us off our feet. Once we reached the shelter of the trees surrounding Fox Lake, we breathed a sigh of relief. A reprieve from the howling wind was in order.

New Terrain

After a leisurely lakeside lunch, we left the Highline Trail behind, aiming for a different pass I'd never visited. We took the opportunity to visit a wind-rippled lake before ascending the pass. Shortly thereafter, we stumbled across an eerie sight - a truly enormous sleeping bag plopped underneath a tree. Supposedly rated to -50F and larger than both of our backpacks, we could only surmise that a horsepacker had stashed it in anticipation of the upcoming hunting season. 

Photo: Stephanie Seitz

As we climbed above treeline again, the wind re-intensified, this time carrying occasional spittle from the darkening clouds. Just before we reached the pass, the heavens opened and wind-driven hail stung us like a million icy daggers. Yelping, we hustled down the other side of the pass.

While intense, the hailstorm was short-lived. We picked our way through a tedious boulder fields, made all the tricker by the rain and hail. Soon, the rocks gave way to gloppy mud, and our spirits began to fray just a tad after a long day of rocks, wind, and aching joints. We found nice sheltered campsites, though, and ate a hearty dinner. After a few hands of cards, it was time to turn in. Rain pitter-pattered on our tents through the night.

Alpine Wandering

Wham! A bolt of lightning struck at first light, no more than a few hundred yards away. The crack of thunder literally shook the forest floor, putting an abrupt end to my night of sleep. We were grateful for a campsite nestled deep in the woods. That one was close!

By and by, the thunderstorm passed, and we broke camp while ribbing each other for our disgusting on-trail food habits (oatmeal for her, Spam for me). A long night of rain had turned the trail into soup, and we slogged our way down a path that was 10% rocks, 50% mud, and 40% horse poop. Delectable! At some point, the trail more or less disappeared under a flowing stream, and we bushwhacked across a wet, willowy meadow to find a different trail on the other side of the drainage.


That trail led to a gorgeous lake - perhaps my favorite of the entire weekend - and then promptly disappeared. We moseyed up the valley, following scraps of trail where they existed. After passing a small tarn, the trail steepened slightly before tying back into the Highline Trail.


We drifted downhill on the Highline back to our cars as dark clouds gathered once again. A few annoying drops aside, we managed to get back to the parking lot before the afternoon's deluge began.

This trip had it all - big views, a dash of adventure, and spicy mountain weather. And to share it with someone special? All the better.

 






Wednesday, June 12, 2024

Sand and Snow


June can be tough. The desert is a furnace, while the mountains are still snowed in. Backcountry trips are possible, but perhaps a little uncomfortable. 

Notwithstanding, I took a delightful pair of June backpacking trips. In brief!

The Maze

I mentioned off-hand earlier this year that I'd never been to the Maze district of Canyonlands, even though I'd lived in Utah for more than a decade. My buddy Paul lives in the area, and has taken many a Maze trip before. He offered to put together a route and coordinate our permits.

Ordinarily, the Maze is a total pain to get to - and the primary reason I'd never been there before. It involves multiple hours of bumping and clunking your way down 4WD roads, miles from anything even remotely resembling civilization. You definitely don't want car trouble out there!

We took a different approach. Rather than spending our time in the car, we opted to make the shorter drive to the Needles district, on the opposite bank of the Colorado, and packraft our way into the Maze. We ended up floating the river for several miles, including through the Confluence of the Green and Grand (e.g. upper Colorado). The Confluence is, in my mind, the beating heart of the American West. The two rivers join as equals. Their collective might carved Cataract Canyon, Glen Canyon, and of course the Grand Canyon. Everyone from Denver to Los Angeles depends on this thin ribbon of silty water to sustain civilization in this arid climate. The only sound audible as we cruised through the confluence was the occasional splish-splash of our paddles.


Before the river enters the truly wild rapids of Cataract Canyon, it forms a nice beach at Spanish Bottom. There, we packed up our boats, and climbed into the Maze itself.


I'd of course heard great things about the Maze, but those words apparently never sunk in, because I was blown away by the scenery. Arches, rock art, fun scrambles, and a few truly magical water sources made for an excellent couple days of wandering. The afternoons were blazing hot, but nothing that a few shady lunch spots couldn't handle. All too quickly, we completed our Maze loop, and crossed back over the Colorado to the Needles. Clouds helpfully lingered overhead as we made the long climb up from the river back to my car.

Overall - a great trip. It won't be my last Maze experience. There is so much more to see!

 

The San Juans

Then it was time to visit the source of the river. I spied some relatively clear, south-facing terrain along the Colorado Trail that looked appealing. Much of it was still a patchy snow slog, but there was still plenty of bare ground. I crossed an unnamed pass at 12,500' in perfect snow conditions. Many of the lakes still held ice. I found a tiny patch of bare ground to camp on, at about 12,000'. I slept surprisingly well despite the altitude, and woke up to a delightful sunrise the next morning.


As I descended, the snow thinned out to a decorative, patchy sparkle. Wildflowers appeared. Pure bliss. This will definitely not be my last San Juans experience!




Saturday, May 18, 2024

By Boot and by Boat: The Lower Escalante


I've realized something: Lake Powell is my frenemy. 

In 1999, my uncle spearheaded a family reunion trip on Lake Powell. Through no fault of our own, we were somehow assigned a pair of truly ancient, decrepit houseboats. The air conditioning failed on both boats. Then the toilets stopped working, and an entire extended family ended up using the 'woods' for the better part of a week.

I put a fishhook through my cousin's eyelid. My dad tore a layer of skin off the bottom of his foot. A storm whipped up one night, and my uncle spent a frantic few minutes re-anchoring the houseboat, which was doing its best to escape its moorings. My sister and several cousins got badly sunburned on one side of their faces, a la Harvey Dent, from early morning sunshine while sleeping on the roof of the boat. 

In short, it was a terrific trip, total gong show, and a decades-long object of family lore and nostalgia. And it was my first exposure to the red rocks of southern Utah. I was transfixed. It arguably set the stage for my eventual move to the Beehive State.

Yet there's a darker side to Lake Powell. Glen Canyon Dam generates only a negligible amount of power. It loses boatloads of water to evaporation and sandstone leakage. It drowned some truly incredible landscapes - Glen Canyon, along with the lower reaches of the Escalante and San Juan rivers. And the lake is a pathetic vestige of its former self. Back in '99, the reservoir was nearly full, but it's been steadily dropping ever since. An ugly bathtub ring, some forty feet above the current water level, mars the slickrock that surrounds the reservoir. Unsightly silt benches clog the mouth of canyons. In short, Powell is a pathetic, stinking mess. Lake Foul, indeed.

Not all is lost though. As the water levels have dropped, the lower reaches of side canyons have begun to restore themselves. Flash floods clear out the silt and debris. Maidenhair ferns have begun to re-grow on shady canyon walls. Special spots, buried under the floodwaters for decades, have emerged afresh. The river will win eventually, and Glen Canyon Dam - a classic monolith to twentieth-century hubris - will lose. The only question is how long it will take.

Three Days of Wandering

I'd never been to the lowest canyons of the Escalante River, below where Lake Powell's floodwaters begin to back up. After all, a side-canyon that dead-ends into a lake is a one-way street... unless you have a packraft, of course! I looped three canyons into one loop-type substance over a three-day period in May. I was a bit worried about the heat (temperatures were forecast to hit 90 each day), but the canyons offered ample shade, and I was wet virtually the entire time - either splashing through canyons, or paddling on the lake itself. 

The hike begin with a an easy jaunt down a well-worn trail, past a spectacular arch. Evidently, the arch is everyone's turnaround point, because downstream became a mild bushwhack at points. I spent all morning heading downstream, encountering at one point a brief section of narrows with a mandatory swimmer. I suppose I could have blown up my packraft and paddled the fifty feet, but I opted to just swim it. Ninety degree heat for the win!


I passed a waterfall, well below Powell's high-water mark. I even found a few cottonwoods that have started to grow in the years since the lake dropped. Finally, I reached the lake and transitioned to packraft mode.


Thankfully, the afternoon was almost dead-calm, a welcome anomaly in a land of much slickrock and sparse vegetation. I paddled downstream, past my target canyon, to check out Cathedral in the Desert a few hours south. Inundated by floodwaters for almost all of the past fifty years, Cathedral in the Desert has re-emerged in the last couple years, due to falling lake levels. In the 50s, it was a magical place. Owing to its recent rebirth, it's still on the mend. To be honest, it smells like decaying gunk. Ferns are growing, but it'll take some time before it recaptures its former glory. Hopefully lake levels stay low enough to keep it from being re-drowned.


After fighting a bit of later-afternoon speedboat chop, I finally made it back to my target canyon, a seldom-visited gulch most notable for being the last confirmed location of disappeared 1930's vagabond Everett Ruess. The bottom of the canyon contained the single deepest alcove I've ever seen. Words cannot do it justice. It was enormous, and even partially flooded, still majestic.

Near where reservoir gave way to solid ground, I made camp for the night, after fourteen hours of hiking and paddling. It took me about five minutes to fall asleep.


The next morning started out auspiciously, with an easy hike up to a not-particularly-spectacular arch. That's where things got interesting. Two miles of thick brush lay between me and my exit from the canyon. The canyon is seldom-visited, but in reports I've collected over the years, I've noticed a trend of increasing complaints over the years. The brush is getting thicker.

Yeah, it wasn't fun. Not every step was a thrash, but much of it was, and occasionally it was horrific. The entire stretch is a continuous series of beaver dams. Combine deep water, stinking mud, and sometimes-impenetrable riparian vegetation, and you've got a recipe for a frustrating couple of miles.


By and by, I finally reached my exit, an old cattle trail near where Ruess had left his burros corralled before disappearing without a trace. The exit itself was surprisingly straightforward, a gem of a route in an otherwise-hostile environment. I followed my compass for a couple miles overland, through Navajo sandstone domes, before dropping into my third and final canyon via an enormous sand dune. I was certainly glad to be descending, rather than ascending it! 


This canyon doesn't even have a proper name - just a number, as if it were a Swiss account. And like a Swiss account, its secrets are deep indeed. Incredibly, the entire thing was passable, and its amazing narrows stretched on for miles. Deep-red sandstone walls soared hundreds of feet above me, blotting out the searing midday sun. I followed the canyon downstream, underneath incredible alcoves, to where it flows into Lake Powell. 


I won't even try and describe what I found down there, only that physics seems to be broken, and Euclidean geometry ceases to apply in canyon country. An abandoned meander has divided a vestigial arm from the main body of Lake Powell, and it took me hours of pondering to reconstruct how this happened. Ask me about this, if you're really curious about a deeply weird and difficult-to-describe phenomenon. 

I ventured back upstream, the way I came, past the sand dune, and made camp near an amazing alcove underneath a stately cottonwood. The water ceased flowing around here, so I tanked up with four liters, the better to quench my intense thirst. Despite the presence of continuous flowing water for the past two days, the heat left me a bit dehydrated.

The day's heat lingered well into the evening. I played peekaboo with the moon as it flirted with the canyon lip above me. Sleep came easy once again, after another thirteen hours of almost continuous motion.

I hiked the last few miles to my car the next morning, the canyon having transitioned to a dry slot at this point. I bumped into one impassible dryfall, easily bypassed by a faint climber's trail. A couple miles later I hit the dirt road, where I walked a couple miles back to my car.

While the reservoir has certainly marred the character of the lower Escalante, there were still plenty of amazing things to see. Many of them are nameless, poorly-documented, or enigmatic. A little planning, a lot of adaptability, and dropping lake levels made this an unforgettable trip. A weekend well-spent! 




Saturday, May 4, 2024

Drawing Triangles

I bought a packraft last year. The purpose wasn't to tackle intense whitewater, but rather to open up new route-creation possibilities.

I liken the Colorado Plateau to a circulatory system. The major rivers are its arteries; the small side-canyons are its capillaries. A packraft allows me to visit both the arteries and the capillaries in a single journey, giving me a better understanding and appreciation of the underlying unity of the landscape. 

My friend Paul refers to these kind of trips as 'triangles'. Hike down one canyon, float a section of river, and hike up a different canyon back to the car. Everyone loves backpacking loops (as opposed to out-and-backs); packrafts greatly increase loop possibilities. I did my first Utah triangle this weekend, and to say I'm hooked would be an understatement. Despite some gusty winds and occasionally choppy surface conditions, the trip was a complete success.

The loop began with a quiet roadwalk down into a canyon. I only encountered one vehicle along the way - a badly out-of-place Ford Escape on a jeep road. No word as to whether its oil pan survived the journey. Clear, flowing water was a welcome treat, as were the shady cottonwoods. 

There wasn't a great launch point where the canyon met the Green River, so I ended up sliding down a muddy cutbank and taking a leap of faith into my boat. It worked, but wasn't particularly dignified. Then again, there's nothing graceful about entering or exiting a packraft, especially since I have the athletic skills of an earthworm.

The float down the river was mostly uneventful. Peak runoff is only a few weeks away, and the Green was moving at a pretty good clip. I took plenty of float-breaks, and still managed to do 12 river miles in less than 3 hours. A few strong gusts of wind added a little extra spice. And of course, the scenery along the way was terrific.

At my takeout point, the high river had formed a narrow lagoon at the mouth of the side-canyon. There, sheltered from the wind by tamarisk, I paddled a decent ways upstream before reaching dry ground. My boat dried instantly in the intense afternoon sunshine. I met an Ontario couple who were rafting the river (in big ole river-runner craft). They were intrigued by my three-pound boat-in-a-backpack, but horrified to see me sip brownish river water (which tasted fine).

A short distance up-canyon, I visited one of the famous Julien inscriptions. Denis Julien, a French-Canadian fur trapper, left his mark in several sites in eastern Utah in the 1830's. This particular inscription is perhaps the best-known and best-preserved of the bunch. Among other things, it provides evidence that he used a sailboat to travel up Cataract Canyon and the Green River, which makes him the first known European to make the journey in either direction. By happenstance, I visited on the 188th anniversary of the day of his inscription - May 3, 1836.  

After hiking for a couple hours, I made a nice camp on a flat bench adjacent to the wash. The next morning, I ventured further up-canyon to check out a significantly older (and cooler) piece of rock art. Of course, there were several smaller panels along the way.


I climbed out of the canyon on an old rancher's trail, now somewhat perilously eroded. It worked for humans, but no cow in its right mind would use such a dilapidated trail nowadays! I finished with a short scramble up over the final rock lip to my waiting car and a jug of clear water that somehow tasted worse than the chocolate milk from the river. 

I'm still in the very nascent stages of packrafting development, but I can foresee how many possibilities this additional mode of human-powered travel will open up. I suppose it's possible I'll outgrow my flatwater boat, but for the time being, I'm having a blast learning this new skill. 

 





 

 



Thursday, February 29, 2024

Desert Winter Thru-Hike: Advice to Future Hikers

The Desert Winter Thru-Hike occupies a special place in my heart. I hiked all of it in 2024, and half of it in 2021. Here are a laundry list of opinions and considerations for the prospective WTH thru-hiker.

Fast Facts:

  • Name: Desert Winter Thru-Hike 
  • Creators: Brett "Blisterfree" Tucker and Melissa "Treehugger" Spencer
  • Length: ~784 miles
  • Eastern Terminus: Saguaro National Park, near Tucson, AZ
  • Western Terminus: Joshua Tree National Park, near Palm Springs, CA
  • Season: December-March 
  • Experience Level: Expert
  • Physical Difficulty: Moderate

If you have not already read everything Brett has written on the WTH, stop now and go read it. The rest of this guide assumes you've already done so, and won't rehash things already covered elsewhere in the WTH corpus.

Seasons and Timing:

Brett covers the ideal start date pretty well in the literature - mid-January, hiking westbound. It's best to wait until much of the winter rain has already fallen and recharged the water sources along the route.

That's all good in theory, but there's clearly a temptation in the hiking world to start the route earlier. I suppose it's natural to try to squeeze a winter hike around one's existing plans, even if it means the weather window is a bit sub-optimal. Following a couple unusually wet monsoon seasons, a few hikers have successfully hiked the WTH in late fall (late October, November, and December).  

Judging from the few years of water data exist for the WTH, I think it's fair to conclude that most of the sources along the WTH (specifically the guzzlers) are less seasonally-variable than one might assume. Off-hand, I can recall only a handful of guzzlers noted in the water chart as completely dry. That said, most isn't really a useful standard. Averages are cold comfort if you were banking on this source that turned out to be dry, and the next potential source is 20 miles away. Depending on the weather, your hydration, and how far the next source is, a dry source can be anything between annoying and fatal. If you choose to hike the route before Brett's mid-January recommendation, be prepared for a few of those unpleasant surprises along the way. In particular, you'll probably have to carry 50 miles of water with 6-7 days of food on your back, up and over some of the WTH's hardest terrain in Section 6. It's tough stuff. 

The other reason to wait until mid-January is perhaps a bit more straightforward: it's cold in the Mojave! The last few sections of the WTH in California have a lot more "high" (3,000-4,000') terrain than does Arizona. A mid-January start allows the Mojave to emerge from the dregs of winter before you arrive, potentially minimizing the storm systems and brutally cold wind. 

Expert-level Backpacking:

The WTH is a route. As such, there's no trail tread; you have to navigate. There are no trail angels; you have to be self-sufficient. There's enough water, but only just enough. Climate factors are tough, even in the middle of the winter. And you're entirely alone out there.

None of this should be a surprise to WTH hikers; they've all done other Brett Tucker routes, after all. But even for experienced hikers, it's easy to get lulled into a false sense of complacency. If you're looking for a relaxed, wintertime trail to chill out on, go hike the Florida Trail. While parts of the WTH are pretty cruisey, you still need to bring your A-game, particularly when storms blow through.

Pace:

All previous WTH finishers have taken between 40 and 50 days to complete the route. It could certainly be done faster by the hundred-day-CDT crowd, but keep in mind that daylight is very limited during the depths of winter. Night-hiking is not always possible, particularly in areas of complex navigation or trail-less terrain. I budgeted 40 days for my 2024 thru-hike, and would have greatly appreciated another few days to wait out storms, lessen the amount of night hiking, and take more detours to check out off-route water sources. 

Don't be fooled by the amount of "road" on this route. While there's certainly plenty of 3-mph terrain, not all road is fast walking. Many of the roads are nothing more than ancient, abandoned mining tracks. They may provide a convenient handrail for navigation, but often the travel is not any faster than pure cross-country is. 

All of this suggests that a 20-mpd pace is probably right for most folks (adjust for your own pace as necessary). Add in some extra time for towns too, since several of them require significant bonus miles to access. The route definitely gets harder as you progress west, though that may be offset by more daylight hours as spring approaches.

Vertical Gain:

The WTH is pretty mild in terms of vert. Remember, it stays rather low for climatic reasons. Some of the uphills can be short-but-steep, a few hundred feet perhaps. There's some occasional scrambling, usually a class II. There's maybe one spot of brief class III in the Turtle Mountains, but it's no biggee; if you've done the northern half of the AT, you're fine.

The only huge climb on the WTH is up and over the Harquahalas. It's steep, long, and unrelenting. It follows what used to be a jeep road a million years ago, but now is mostly just a rocky ditch with occasional catclaw to dodge. It'll slow you down. Other than that, most climbs on the WTH are either short or gradual.

Underfoot: 

The walking surface contributes to the WTH's difficulty far more than vert does. It's often hard to predict how easy progress will be. Surface type (road vs. trail vs. cross-country) tells you almost nothing. Remember, most of the roads the WTH follows are unimproved, and thus are no easier or harder walking than the adjacent terrain. Similarly, cross-country can range from 3mph on the delightful desert pavement west of the Turtles to a rocky hellscape in the Woolsey Peak Wilderness. Brett sometimes warns you about tough terrain that may not be obvious from looking at the map; other times, it's a surprise.

In general, it all kind of evens out. Buck-30 has lodged some pretty bitter complaints about the WTH's rocks. I share his opinion only partially. True, the rocks were horrifically bad at times (especially in the Woolsey Peak Wilderness, the Turtle Mountains, and the Pintos), but the agony was usually short-lived. Many more miles were kinda rocky, but not twist-your-ankle-and-scream-at-the-sky rocky. I say that as someone with a surgically-reconstructed foot and a well-known loathing of rocks.

Night-hiking:

With as few as 10 hours of daylight during the depths of winter, it's tempting to assume you'll do a bunch of night-hiking on the WTH. Sometimes, night-hiking is peaceful and pleasant on the WTH. Particularly when crossing unremarkable desert basins, it's useful to do those easy road miles in the dark.

But here's the thing - navigation on the WTH often entails following subtle washes, faint mining tracks, or ephemeral burro trails. Or you might follow nothing but a compass heading. That stuff is just plain hard at night. There were definitely times on the WTH where I wished I could night-hike, but it just wasn't practical. My advice: if you need to night-hike (say, to get to the Wenden Post Office before it closes), plan ahead, so you can do easy road miles in the dark, not complex navigational problems.

One fringe benefit of the WTH is the sunrises and sunsets. I generally hiked an hour before dawn until sunset most days, so I saw every single desert sunrise and sunset. And magical they are! Savor this unique aspect of winter hiking.

Water:

On one hand, the WTH crosses the lowest, driest, hottest deserts in North America. On the other hand, it's a Brett Tucker route. If you hike during the recommended season, you'll probably never have to carry more than about 30 miles of water. I consistently found myself carrying 15-20 miles of water, and sometimes more than that. 

As far as quality goes... it's the desert. You will only encounter 1 or 2 naturally-flowing sources on the entire 800 miles. The rest are cattle wells, potholes, and wildlife guzzlers. With stagnant water comes the potential for truly nasty water, of course. You'll almost certainly have to drink out of a source that has a dead animal floating in it. Your water will very often be noticeably green and have a funky taste. If you're not OK with this, the WTH is not for you. On the other hand, not all of the water is nasty. I carry Fruit Punch flavor packets in the desert, reserving them to mask the taste of only the most vile sources. Over the course of 40 days, I think I used 4 or 5 of them in total.

One benefit of hiking in the winter is that you don't need to drink nearly as much as in the summer. Everyone's water needs are different of course, but I frequently found myself drinking only a single liter over the course of a day. Even though 20-30 mile carries were common, I rarely found myself toting a heavy water load.

Navigation:

One key benefit of hiking a Brett Tucker route is the top-notch quality of navigational resources. WTH hikers will already be familiar with his conventions from other Tucker routes. I prefer to navigate primarily by paper maps. I found this a challenge on the WTH for the following reasons:

  • Sometimes the base maps (USGS quads) just didn't have enough detail on them. The contours were illegibly faint, or inappropriately-sized for the terrain (e.g. 40-footers, obscuring a delta of 20-foot-deep washes). 
  • Sometimes Caltopo likes to put labels directly on top of the route, obscuring valuable topographic data underneath
  • Often, the route is a maze of faint vehicle travel corridors. What counts as a road/two-track/vehicle-accessible-wash is entirely subjective. The USGS base maps will say one thing, the OpenStreetMap layer will say another, Brett's waypoints will say a third thing, and your own observations will say a fourth. In short, it's an undefinable anarchy.

None of this is really Brett's fault; it's just the nature of hiking in an environment of braided washes and vehicle mayhem. I've provided all this feedback to Brett already, and I have no doubt he'll continue to refine the mapset in future iterations of the WTH resources. But there will always a degree of unavoidable "What the heck??" inherent in hiking a route like this. And for that, it's imperative to make sure the digital resources are teed up.

Now, perhaps you read the previous paragraphs and shrugged it off since you don't carry paper maps anyhow. In that case - yikes. I won't go off on a rant here, as I'm clearly on the losing side of the Great Paper Maps Debate. I'll just note that my battery pack shorted out in the Sheephole Mountains, and with it my phone. Had I not carried and used my paper maps daily, I would have been utterly lost, in exposed terrain with a massive storm approaching. GPS is a useful supplement, but cannot and should not abrogate the hard work of understanding your surroundings with the paper mapset.

On the topic of GPS: 

  • Avenza Maps works just fine for the majority of the route. It still suffers from text-atop-the-data issue, but usually you can muddle your way through just fine.
  • Occasionally, Avenza just isn't zoomed-in enough to really understand what's happening. In such cases, satellite imagery is really helpful. Download it before you leave home. Sometimes there's no substitute for a photo from space when trying to make sense of a maze of faint roads, washes, or burro trails.

Gear:

The WTH is murder on inflatable pads. I think Recon managed not to pop his, but he might be alone in that regard. After the WTH put15 holes in my pad in 2021, I opted for a foam pad in 2024 - even though I hate foam pads and sleep poorly on them. This was a prudent choice. The only downside to a foam pad is that I had to strap it to the outside of my pack, so my load was a bit bulkier when pushing through catclaw and other nasty desert plants. The pad got pretty beat up. Whatever, it's a foam pad.  

The WTH is an extremely windy trail. It's strong, it's relentless, and it's freezing cold. I wore my windshirt nearly every day until I lost it in the middle of Section 6, and I wished for it every day thereafter. Yes, windshirts are delicate. Yes, you will certainly tear it up on catclaw. Yes, it's still worth it.

I recommend some form of mild bug protection on the WTH. On both my 2021 and 2024 hikes, I had a couple nights of annoying bugs in the lower elevations (near Parker and Amboy, to be specific). Anything will do - a fully-enclosed shelter, or even just a headnet to wear while sleeping. I only used my headnet maybe three times, but it was sure better than waking up to a dozen mosquito bites on my forehead! As long as you're not completely defenseless, you're fine.

Just because the WTH is a desert trail doesn't mean it's hot. Temperatures regularly dip down into the 20's on the WTH. As a cold sleeper, I carried a 10-degree bag in 2021 and 2024. Given the length of winter nights, I appreciated the extra few degrees (and ounces) of fluffy downy goodness. 

There are enough rocks on the WTH that it really makes sense to replace your shoes a little earlier than normal. I generally get 500-700 miles out of a pair. On the WTH, I found that they were pretty much done after 400. I endured a couple weeks of tired and achey feet on the WTH until I replaced my shoes.

Town:

On the whole, the towns on the WTH are pretty bad. A solid half of the resupply stops are nothing more than a remote station and maybe a post office. Parker is a good town and makes for an excellent place to take a celebratory halfway-there zero. Buckeye's alright. The rest are pretty primitive. A typical resupply plan:

  • Arizona City: Buy (Dollar General)
  • Buckeye: Buy (Dollar General)
  • Tonopah: Skip. Carry from Buckeye to Wenden (120 miles total)
  • Wenden: Maildrop (PO, though note the limited hours) OR buy in Salome
  • Parker: Buy (Walmart or Safeway)
  • Fenner: No great solutions. Maybe bribe a driver going to Needles to take you.
  • Amboy: Maildrop (Roy's)

Red Tape:

There's basically zero red tape on the route, and none that's particularly burdensome. In brief:

  • Joshua Tree National Park requires non-quota backcountry permits. If you're already in the town of Twentynine Palms, you can get one in person. If not, you'll have to pay your blood money to Wreck-Dot-Gov. 
  • There's no camping in the western unit of Saguaro National Park, which really isn't a problem as you're only in the park for a few miles. It's easy enough to just keep hiking until you get outside the park boundary

Termini:

The WTH is designed as a stand-alone route, and its termini in the two National Parks are certainly worthy objectives. They also provide easy access to other long-distance trails - the AZT and PCT on the east and west ends, respectively. In both cases, Blisterfree has mapped short connectors to those trails. The WTH therefore plays the role of the PNT in its ecosystem, facilitating all sorts of exciting journeys. Want to hike from the Divide to the Pacific Ocean? A combo of the GET, AZT, WTH, PCT, and SDTCT is your ticket.

Limited Circulation:

The WTH is amazing, but it's not for everyone. Buck-30 covers this very well in the "Should I Hike This Route" section of his WTH overview post, and I'd encourage you to really read and consider whether the WTH is for you. In my opinion, there are a couple factors that contraindicate broad popularity with the hiking masses:

  • Inaccessibility. The WTH is beautiful, but not in the classical sense of green trees, snowcapped peaks, and sparkling lakes. The route is remote, stark, and forbidding, and yet those precise qualities lend the WTH its beauty. The towns suck, the water sucks, the wind never stops blowing. But it's enormously rewarding, in large part because you're scraping together an existence - however meager - in a most hostile environments. Not everyone's a dyed-in-the-wool desert rat, a prerequisite trait on the WTH.
  • Fragility. Footprints last forever in the desert. Potholes and guzzlers only collect a finite amount of water, and a large crop of hikers could easily drink them dry. Gates, wells, and fences are decades-old, and might break if not treated with extreme care. The Wenden Post Office is roughly the size of my tent, and cannot handle a flood of resupply packages. In short, the WTH is a particularly fragile route.

I think of the WTH as a delicate manuscript in a library's rare book collection. Unlike an ordinary paperback (the AT, PNT or whatever), it can't be circulated in an unrestricted fashion, as it'd quickly suffer an ignominious fate. On the other hand, it does no good to lock it away entirely and prevent all access - what would be the point in even having it?

Of course, libraries have already solved this dilemma already. They generally limit:

  • Who can access the rare book collection (researchers with a demonstrated need of the materials and with experience handling them properly)
  • Under what conditions they can access the collection (on-site in a special reading room; no checkout available). 
Brett's solution for the WTH is similar. The WTH resources are available only to veterans of at least one of his other routes (400 mile minimum), under the condition that they not share those resources with others. You can find more details on his site. I think of the WTH as a nice little treat available to those who have already proved their desert route-hiking chops, and who've demonstrated their ability to be exemplary citizens of the route-hiking community by giving back (particularly in the form of water information).

Resources:

Brett's stuff is required reading, and I'd recommend reading Buck-30's summary post at the end of his journal. If you want to dive deeper, you can also peruse Buck 30's daily entries, as well as Recon's.