20 miles, 8.5 hours

I woke to the birds singing in the early dawn light and got our tea water boiling. We save time and fuel weight by eating a cold breakfast but we must have a hot bottle of something to drink!

We had a lovely morning walking down the rest of Hackberry Canyon, full of color and the smell of willows with a warm breeze. I love days like this, where we’re just walking, not scrambling, climbing, sliding down scree, or sinking in quicksand. Ah! These wonderful days make those harder ones worthwhile.

The creek flowed down a narrow channel that at times spread across the bottom of the canyon so we got our feet wet many times, but in this warm weather it’s quite pleasant. After a while Hackberry joined Cottonwood Creek, which was a bit larger but nearly as easy. Three miles later we were heading up the Paria River, with a wide canyon, plenty of cows and a chain of ATVs screaming and puttering past us. The canyon walls changed in color, height and shape as we walked up, and the water was very silty in a greenish gray color. We had to cross countless times but the water was only shin deep.

We camped just off the Paria in Snake Canyon, which had a small clear trickling stream.