Woke at 3 AM to snow hitting my face. At first I thought it was just dust, then turned on my light to see it blowing sideways through my tent. Not much I could do, just buried my head in gear and eventually drifted back to sleep.
Morning came too soon. A light dusting of snow had fallen. It seems its so dry here that whatever snow falls is quickly evaporated. d=rt and I had a lot of trouble getting out of our tents. It was so cold! Our water bottles had frozen, not solid, but enough that they would not allow us to drink from them. I had all of my clothes on, still not super comfortable.
We walked dirt roads for 10 or so miles. It was very uneventful. We did see a bunch of turkeys, probably close to 50 of them. I wanted to try and catch one, but d=rt did not like the idea.
The wind howled all day, really strong. The Henry Mountains, where we spent last night were in the clouds most of the day, looked like off and on snow. Beautiful though!
Water became an issue once again today. As we left the high mountains we quickly returned to cow country. We had 2 water sources shared with livestock, both troughs. The first had what we think was a coyote leg in it. Though the water was crystal clear, I could not bring myself to drink it. Where did the coyote leg come from and why was it here? We may never know. The second trough was full of green slime and cow poop. Yum.
We turned off Tarantula Mesa around 3 pm. The decent to the canyon below was nothing short of brutal. Loose dirt and crumbly sandstone. But we made it.
The last few miles of the day were the toughest. We got off route and on some steeper nastier stuff than we needed to be on. It was tough. We made it to some water though, and a nice campsite.
d=rt has a nasty blister on the bottom of his foot. He thinks it is infected, but says he can make the 5 days to Escalante, where we plan to take a day off. It will be the longest I have gone without shower, 17 days. Hope we can find a ride!
Amazing sunset today yielded amazing pictures. Once again, I was tired and frustrated, but I got over it by taking a look around at this amazing country. Oh, and it's Monday and I did not work.
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