First impressions

Our first camp before starting the hayduke trail itself was car camping in Colorado National Monument (like a national park). We had great views down from a canyon rim onto towers including independence monument shown here.

Organised some food parcels to send forward to ourselves to collect at post offices... Which was hard work but fun! Martina rests in the sun....

Getting sorted to get going

We are in Montrose, Colorado, with our friend Mary-Joy and have just shopped for food for 28 days in the desert. The plan is to head into Utah tomorrow and to start with a short 2 day section through Arches National Park before renting kayaks for 4 days and letting the Colorado river do some of the work for us (from Moab downstream for 70 miles). After that it is 5 days hiking through desert (an area called "the maze" - ominous!) before we get to the next resupply town, Hanksville. We've been down the canyon of the Gunnison River yesterday with Mary-Joy and saw lots of interesting things including a burrowing owl, lots of prairie dogs and vultures circling above - apparent they can dispatch a carcass (human) in under an hour! Happy to be back in red desert country and smelling the sweet juniper and pine. Photos to follow!

Burrowing Owl

Move

Martina moves out of her Glasgow flat

Hayduke planning....

Pouring over lots if maps, guides and web based blogs etc to plan out our 850 mile route through the desert and canyons of Arizona and southern Utah

Hayduke training....

We were out yesterday on our local coast from Rosiemarkie to Cromarty on a 21 mile walk. This is a very sheltered area and tends to receive better weather than the mainland to the west. Lots to see including sea birds, geology of the great glen fault, fossils and footprints from the elusive otters around here. The terrain is varied too from sand, rock hopping, some cross-country, singletrack, single lane road and jeep track. We can't train for the temperatures of the Hayduke though, we had a cool 3-6 C yesterday, we are expecting temps up to 35 C out in the Grand Canyon!

Here's a quote from Edward Abbey, the Hayduke Trail is named after a character from his fictional book 'the Monkey Wrench Gang' - well worth a read!

"In the first place you can't see anything from a car; you've got to get out of the
goddamned contraption and walk, better yet crawl, on hands and knees, over the sandstone and through the thornbush and cactus. When traces of blood begin to mark your trail you'll see something, maybe." -Edward Abbey

We are off again! This time we are attempting a more remote and less "official" route called the Hayduke Trail after a fictional eco-terrorist in Edward Abbey's "The Monkey Wrench Gang". The trail links Arches, Canoyonlands, Bryce, Zion and Grand Canyon National Parks and very roughly follows the Colorado River. There are a lot of variants to choose from, not a lot of water and what we understand to be very challenging hiking conditions. Our tickets are booked, we leave Scotland on the 6th of April.

Youtube videos now on-line !

We have produced at great time and expense two short videos to music of our travels which may not worry Steven Spielberg much but hopefully relate some of the fun of our summer's walk....

Video 1 Nature Song and Video 2 Been Everywhere Man