10 miles, 7 hours

It rained last night and the air was sweetened with a touch of juniper. We had another challenging day for navigation. We followed the wash out of the canyon and took a stock trail, eventually finding our way to drop into Swap Canyon while picking through boulders. Much of the dirt and rock was gray, and we could even smell oil in the patches of exposed shale.

Approaching Waterpocket Fold in Capitol Reef I enjoyed the return of color : waves of red and tan sandstone set out from the lines of dark green pinyon and juniper.

Yet more rain was on our tail so we camped at the bottom of the Burr trail to avoid the wind on top.

TRAIL NOTES:
At mile 41.6 we found what Ryan Choi called “manky but drinkable” water pooled at the spring and it was fine once we filtered it through a bandana and treated it. Clearer water is .2 mile further but looked more alkaline.