We had a lovely breakfast with Candy, who cooked for us again, then snagged the last camp site at Squaw Flat to have a nice start for tomorrow. She then drove us to the visitor’s center to get our backcountry permits. We had quite a conversation with the two park rangers there.

Between the ranger yesterday and the ones in the backcountry office today we learned that basically the park folks are not fond of the Hayduke route (It’s not a trail, you know, just because they called it that, it’s a route–so we heard a few times in our brief stay.) There are various complaints–hikers walking on the criptobiotic soil, burying food and water caches in the park and not retrieving them. But most surprising was that many hikers are very under prepared, mostly for the extremes of the desert: the heat of the day and freezing night temperatures, the amount of water they need, and the ruggedness of the terrain. The woman in the backcountry office said at least half of the route hikers quit at or by the time they get to Canyonlands.

We did what we could to give a better impression of prepared hikers and reassured them we know what we’re doing, but I’m afraid their outlook likely remained the same–rather negative. I hope this is something that dramatically improves over time.

Candy left us in the afternoon at our campsite, all prepared to walk on in the morning.