The BearLee Chronicles
Adventure travel, photography, and storytelling.
T minus 10 hours. Moab!
We are here!!! After 2.5 days of driving over 950 miles for food and water cacheing shenanigans, we are here! We are in Moab, Utah, gateway town to Arches National Park and Canyonlands National Park and hence, Hayduke Trail’s northeast terminus. The Hayduke Trail Starts on the north west corner of Arches National Park. Moab, a town once prominent for uranium mining during the cold war, the era of nuclear warheads, is now an adventure hub for many likes: mountain bikers, rock crawling jeeps, river runners, hikers, canyoneers, rock climbers, slack-liners, and, of-course, now thru-hikers too. Hayduke thru-hikers!!
After picking up camp and cacheing our last food and water this morning near Grosvenor Arch in the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, we decided to drive by and explore Tropic, one of the towns we plan to zero and resupply in while doing this stretch of the trail. All three of us agreed that this town is a sweet place to zero, with plenty of motel options and a grocery store more than adequate enough to resupply from.
The drive from Tropic to Moab was uneventful. The only thing that had me concerned was the obvious lack of snow, even at 9000 feet elevation, which was how high the road we took elevated us to. This drought in the southwest is indeed concerning, especially when thru-hiking thru this high desert and canyons. On the bright side, just after three days, there is another cold front bringing in a winter storm with snow and rain in our direction. Needless to say, that means we will start the Hayduke Trail tomorrow wet, windy, and cold. It can’t always be sunny. In a way, I don’t mind. We need the precipitation. I’d rather have rain and snow give us flowing springs and creeks than have to carry so much water on my back. We are prepares for days like this. Hayduke Trail, here we come!!! Colorado Plateau, I’m home.
