Day 61 – 5/13/16
19.7 map / (forgot) GPS miles
909.0 / 983.9 miles total

The first few miles of the day continued through the lovely slick rock before turning to a sandy slog along jeep trails.

We walked later than usual to make it to the East Fork of the Virgin River for lunch. In the cool shade by the river, we lounged as Joey read a few more chapters from “Only with a Cowboy.”

The afternoon was spent walking along and in the river, and it was wonderful! So beautiful and unexpected. None of us realized we’d be treated to several sections of narrows. The cool water felt great on such a hot day, especially on our feet after all the road walking and sand slogging.

We were supposed to climb out of the river canyon by a notoriously bad route referred to by the name of a technical canyon nearby, “Fat Man’s Misery”, but we had info on a slight alternate from Jamal Green, who has a great website, www.acrossutah.com. Simply walk one more bend down the river, through some really great narrows and climb up a less steep route from the other side, arriving at the same saddle as Fat Man’s Misery.

I can’t compare since I haven’t taken Fat Man’s Misery route, but Jamal’s was no big deal at all, and definitely none of the poison ivy I’ve heard tale of on the original Hayduke. And there were tons of footprints, so Jamal’s is obviously a well used route. We followed a well used path and cairns a little farther along our route before stopping to camp, just by the border of Zion National Park.

Joey read is more from our new book for bedtime stories; it got really juicy.