The cheapest, and hardest, spa therapy I've ever had... or How I Shrunk My Leather Boots

Sometimes you wanna hike trails, with a map, trail guide, and difficulty ratings. Other times you just wanna start walking across untrodden soil, letting the landscape tell you its own story. This post is about something in between.... something the park service calls "routes". Those are my favorite.

A route is an unmaintained trail that enough people have walked and survived to pass on the information. I like these trails because I typically have it to myself, or may encounter a few people but they are cool hiker-types like myself.  :-)

One such hiking adventure started on a typical gorgeous morning living in the Waterpocket Fold. A friend, J, was visiting and we decided to hook up with another friend, R, for a day of route-hiking. We had a topo map (don't worry mom, I was well-prepared) and recommendations from friends on the particular route we'd be walking. This route was a canyon that parralleled the highway. Hard to get lost, by hard to get out of. We kinda of knew where to park, and we kinda knew where we'd come out of the canyon but the 7 miles in between, not so sure.

Me and J hiking through the Waterpocket Fold. See, no trail here.... this is a route.

The first half of our journey was great, gorgeous and fun. We were completely entrenched in a rock canyon, with no way out but to walk east. Every now and then we'd find a game trail along the side of a ravine. It got a little sketchy but R was great at keeping me calm. (I freak out easy if the ground I'm walking on isn't solid.) I guess I should mention that it was monsoon season so those 7 miles needed to be walked by noon. Catching yourself in a canyon during a rainstorm can be deadly and tourists die every year making this mistake. So yeah, I was a bit on edge.

Anyway.... we were seeing lots of birds, some deer, even scared some quail who couldn't fly and just kept running ahead of us for a mile! After a few hours, it began to sprinkle but nothing to worry about. Just enough to make us walk faster. I guess I was moving a bit too fast because as I was about to leap over a giant mud puddle, I slipped and fell in! The falling in mud part wasn't so bad, it was the getting stuck part that got me.  I had slipped into a puddle of wet betonite clay, the most slippery substance I've come across. My hiking boot and leg had been wedged down into the clay and I couldn't get out! J began to freak out a bit, yelling for R who was lagging behind. All I heard from her was "oh no! OH NO!" and then she asked if I was ok. I was, I just wasn't going anywhere. R came up behind me, grabbed the loops on my backpack and began tugging. With a great sucking sound, my leg and boot popped out. J, who had decided if I was laughing, life was ok, began taking photos... Here is my favorite...

This mud is spa-worthy. Afterwards, my leg was smooth and my pores never smaller!

and another....

and then this one...

I got chilly being stuck in a mud pit.... and it was raining...
hence the rain poncho. Go Aggies!

The rest of the trip, my leg mud dried as we walked through the most beautiful canyon I've ever seen. (yeah, even you, Grand Canyon!) The mud flaked off my leg and my boot, leaving both tighter and firmer.... some people pay lots of money for that treatment! At the very end of the trail, in order to get back to the highway, we had to wade through a pretty nasty, agriculture run-offy river and then bushwack our way through tamarask. After reaching the highway and realizing we had no idea where the car was, J and I took off east while R took off west with the keys. Glad he found the car first and came to pick us up. Another part of route hiking are the unforeseen adventures!

After I got home and showered, I cleaned my boots and wrapped them in newspaper to dry out. A few days later, they were clean and gorgeous, and 2 sizes smaller! So I gave them to a friend and bought some new ones. At least they could live to see another trail on another day.

All in all, a great day. What I remember most when I look back on that hike is this...

Take the trail less traveled and you shall be rewarded