Hayduke Trail – Day 4
March 17, 2023
Miles Today/ Total: 17.8 / 60.3
It was 24 degrees when I woke up this morning and Ken and I decided to stay in our sleeping bags a little longer to keep warm. We finally got around and we’re on the trail by 7:30.
We dry camped last night (no nearby water source) so our first stop was a side trail down to the Colorado River to get some water. Back on the trail we had 14.6 miles to our next water source.
The trail followed a very tough 4WD road today and it was rough enough we only saw 2 ATV’s all day. We reached a spot on the trail shortly after lunch that showed a shortcut to the water source and decided to try that route. It led to a huge drop into the wash and we navigated down several benches before finally getting cliffed out (unable to go any further because of a cliffs). We turned around a climbed back up to the road adding about 2 miles to our day.
The road continued on around the wash for a couple of miles before the trail split from the road and we began our trek down the wash. There were several large pour-offs that we worked our way down before reaching a point we had to climb up to a bench and work our way around to a side wash to descend.
On the bench we found a flat spot that we could use for our tents and set up camp as the sun set behind the canyon wall. We cooked and ate dinner then turned into our tents as the night air and cold wind chased us inside.
