Sowats Point to Sheep Mountain Spring
Saturday, May 7 , 2016 – Day 1
12:30 pm – 4:45 pm
5 Miles
Elevation Loss: 2,200
We are up, packed and checked out by 6:00 am. We stash our gear in the van and head north. After driving east on historic Route 66 we turn north onto Interstate 89. This is beautiful, high desert country. We drive through the Painted Desert and pass the Vermillion Cliffs. The day is cool and cloudy, and when we arrive at Jacob’s Lake two and a half hours later, it starts to snow. Some people are wearing warm motorcycle clothes and some are in shorts. I enjoy watching people scramble for warm clothes while amazed at all the white stuff pouring down. This is our last bit of civilization before we head into the back country. Last toilet, last non-camping food and drink.
Back on the road, almost immediately we take a left off 89A and head down a forest service fire road. There are signs of controlled cutting of Ponderosa Pine. Big piles of slash dot the woods, waiting to be burned. This cutting and burning keeps the forest floor open, nothing like the deciduous jungles you find in the New England mountains. There has been recent rain so quite a few mud holes and deep ruts have formed in boggy areas. Stefan drives through all of them at top speed, and we are thrown about the car, held in place only by our seat belts, with mud trashing the sides of the car. An hour and 45 minutes later we pull up at the trailhead parking area at Sowat’s Point. Stefan sets up a shelter and prepares lunch – turkey and cheese rollups.
I’m entranced by the view, looking out over the Esplanade and seeing such a different part of the Canyon. I feel excited and happy, despite my trepidation. Stefan pulls our stuff out of the car – packs, poles and 9 stuff sacks containing group food for the next 7 days. He asks that we each take 3 food sacks. My pack is already pretty full, but I cram three bags into the top of my pack, close and cinch everything back up and put on the rain cover as the clouds are still spitting rain. After a final look around, we heave on our packs, adjust the straps, and head into the Canyon.
This is a 5 mile hike, not 3.5 miles as stated on the Wildland Trekking Company itinerary on the web site. The trail is continuously heads down, changing only in how gradual or steep the descent is. The steepest downhill section of the hike is tough. It’s maybe a mile and a half long and I feel the impact of the pack weight on my knees shortly after we start going down. I feel okay though and delude myself into thinking my training for this trip has been good enough to get me through without too much discomfort.
The trail winds around the side of cliff. A misstep or loss of balance toward the side of the path leading down and I would meet my death. The pitch off the side of the path is that steep. Stefan and Haley take the lead, with Nancy and me bringing up the rear. The pace is a bit fast for me. I feel rushed when I stop to take pictures. I feel like there’s some urgency about moving at a steady pace so we will arrive in camp with plenty of light to set up our tents and cook dinner. I, however, want to stop and look and take pictures. Instead I compromise and lag behind for a few seconds, time enough to take a picture, then hustle to catch up to Nancy. We take our first break after the steepest part of the descent in a small oasis of Cottonwood trees. It feels really good to take my pack off. I try not to think about how heavy it feels. There’s nothing I can do about it – I have to carry it…period.
The walk along the Esplanade is fairly flat, but the pack weight is so much more that I trained with that it increases the hiking difficulty by half. Nancy and I are pretty quiet, both of us either completely in, or close to, survival mode. My legs actually begin to tremble from fatigue. I don’t remember the last time I felt that happen. I am also suffering from intestinal issues, and have to ask the group to stop for a break so I can relieve myself. Lots of discomfort and some embarrassment for me. We start moving again and clamber down a steep but fairly short drop into Jump Up Canyon. Once down we a hike along a creek bed until we pull off and walk into camp.
We camp at Sheep Mountain Spring that first night, setting up our tents on a ledge above a creek bed covered with red silty dirt as soft as talcum powder. Our tents are partially sheltered by the overhanging canyon walls. While Stefan walks to the spring to get water and begins to prepare dinner, Nancy and I go through the process of figuring out how to set up our ultralight tent. The early evening is cool enough and the weather unsettled so we put on the rain fly, which effectively shuts out all possibility of feeling a breeze. The actual tent is more of a screen above us and down the sides with only the last few inches of the sides and the bottom being made of a water resistant material. Although it’s considered large enough to sleep two, we are really crammed in there and I wonder how we’re actually going to be able to sleep with any comfort. Haley has never set up a tent before so between us and Stefan we set up her single ultra-light tent in no time.
I’ve never felt comfortable sitting around camp using rocks as stools. I like a chair, a camp chair or camp stool would work, but rocks are hard and my butt gets sore after 10-15 minutes. The evening has only been dark for a short while when it begins to shower lightly. I excuse myself and crawl into the tent to lie down. Oh my god, lying down, not having the pack on, not sitting on a rock, but actually being prone and semi-comfortable feels delicious. Nancy joins me and we maneuver ourselves into sleeping positions where we aren’t in each other’s space and eventually nod off listening to the occasional rain drop plopping onto the rain fly of the tent.
I end up getting up in the night three times to pee. Emptying bowels and bladders on a backpacking trip in the Kanab Creek wilderness is definitely a challenge. It takes several tries for me to get good at it. Having a bowel movement in the outdoors is not foreign to me, but pooping in a hole is not something I practice often. We have toilet paper and the expectation is for us to store all our used toilet paper in plastic bags and carry all 7-day’s worth out of the Canyon. For a bowel movement, we’re supposed to move away from camp, dig a 6″ hole (Stefan has a shovel), and poop into the hole. Well, easier said than done. I keep missing the darn hole. Oh well, nothing a stick can’t move into the hole afterward. Then I cover up the hole, cramming the soiled toilet paper into the plastic bag and walk back to camp. There is no “nice” place to store that plastic bag containing the used toilet paper in a backpack. It’s just something I’m going to have to get used to doing and smelling.