Day 5 – 3/18/16
18.7 GPS miles
88.7 total
Well the good news is my arms did not, in fact, fall off overnight. The bad news is my Neoair sprung another leak. I don’t know how this is happening. The past 2 nights were camped on sandy beaches without a pokey thing in sight.
Back to the good things. We had a nice relaxed morning following some jeep roads winding through canyons and up to a plateau. Then we dropped down Rustler Canyon with a few fun little dry falls to bypass before reaching to oasis of Indian Creek. Naturally, we went swimming!
The water was a great treat to walk in for about a mile before we left it. In the morning we’d each hauled 4 liters of disgusting Colorado River with us for the day and then 5 liters from Indian Creek for the night and tomorrow – the next water is at our resupply location at Needles Outpost. All that water, along with our packrafts and too much food make for very heavy loads.
Oh, and we finally used our umbrellas, saw sheep and camped on a saddle with awesome views!
Are those animals in the picture sheep?
Pretty awesome views. Heavy packs bite!
Wish I could continue to follow you closely online… looks like I’m going to have to make do with following you closely on trail. I’ll be about a week+ behind, and falling further back knowing your speeds! I’m glad you’re piecing together your hike adventurously. I couldn’t find a rafting partner so I will walk, which makes your cool rafting posts that much more valuable to me as I can live somewhat vicariously. Enough talk, time to walk. TTFN!
Puppy, I live in Moab and have packrafted this section many times. It is all flat water with no rapids all the way to the confluence. Let me know if you need any beta on boating, or some shortcuts to needles. We also like hosting people if you need a place to stay before your trip. Anyways, good luck on your trip.