Day 51 – 5/3/16
23.8 map / 23.3 GPS miles
765.7 / 827.0 miles total

I was pumped and ready to go at our early start time of 6:30 am. Someone else was considerably less excited and not ready until 6:40. After 3 miles of hiking we hit our last water source, time to tank up. I was a full 10 minutes ahead of the others, and stuck sitting at the water source 25 minutes before everyone was ready to leave. I was antsy and annoyed. 

Long distance hiking seems like it would a solitary experience, especially on a trail like be Hayduke. But the truth is I haven’t had any alone time in 2 months. I absolutely want to be hiking this with Bubs and now Joey; it would be so much less fun without them. But being constantly on a group schedule without any real independence can be exhausting. I know I tend to want to push more, take fewer breaks, hike later, etc. I’m sure that is exhausting for other people. 

Today I was especially antsy to just go, to hike at my own speed. We had real trail and knew where we’d all end up at the end of the day. Other trails I’ve hiked have been different – clearly defined trail where it’s easy to pick a spot to meet up to camp at the end of the day, then everyone can hike and take breaks at their own pace during the day. This would normally be a disaster on the Hayduke. So, I expressed my desire to go, and off I went. 

I got to the top of the South Kaibab trail, 21 miles and 3200′ of gain at 3:30pm. We discussed taking the free shuttle bus to the campground/store to keep the day shorter, but I decided to just walk it since it was early. Another 3 miles and I was at the store. A 24 mile day in the Hayduke by 4:30pm. What?

I loitered for a few hours, making multiple trips into the general store for food before heading over to the campground, which I had pictured as dreadfully far away, like half a mile, but it turned out to only be like .1 miles away. I ran into Doobie, who was wondering what happened to us (we last saw him just as we went into the infamous privy). I made a final trip back to the general store at 7:45pm to get something resembling supper and found Bubs and Joey, who’d just arrived via shuttle bus. They’d taken a 2 hour lunch siesta. I’m so glad I wasn’t there.