Thursday, Feb 13th 2025, 0700-1745
Beginning section 4 to North Big Horn Mtns, mm25
25 miles.
My campsite was relatively peaceful, considering my proximity to the interstate. I actually slept just fine without my earplugs in. The traffic was just white noise. I did wake up to an unusual sound in the middle of the night: raindrops on my tent! It was a brief event, not amounting to anything measurable, but I did enjoy it. Sometimes the sound of rain beginning to hit my tent can be very ominous and threatening, but this was actually comforting. From reading Buck30’s journal, I was also lucky that the wind was blowing from the west and keeping the smell of the giant chicken farm away. Apparently it’s quite an offensive smell that permeates the town of Tonopah on a regular basis.
When I woke in the morning, there wasn’t even a hint that rain had fallen overnight. It was such a brief sprinkling. But the air did feel a bit more humid and the forecast called for a chance of rain after 2 pm. The sky was partly cloudy starting out, once again making for a beautiful sunrise.
I shortly crossed under I-10, my second interstate crossing this trip. Then I walked under a power line for many miles, watching for red-tailed hawks that made their nests in the towers. I crossed another canal, this time heavily fortified with fencing, making it impossible should I have needed to collect water. But I guess in this way, people couldn’t dump garbage in the canal.
Just as my road walk ended, I visited a guzzler. I didn’t need water but wanted to be able to report on its status. Then I begin a cross country section through the Big Horn Wilderness that would last most of the rest of the day. As usual, the route followed a wash up for many miles, broke out of the wash to go over a pass, then rejoined a different wash on the other side. Many of the washes this day were quite rocky, brushy and braided, making for some slow and awkward travel. There was even one giant pour-off where I had to go up the side of the canyon, sidle a steep slope, then come down in a side wash to rejoin the main, ala Hayduke style. It was fun.
I arrived at another guzzler just in time for lunch. This one had a metal apron and giant tank underneath it. I was able to peer down into the tank and see that it was at least half full, equating to thousands of gallons of water. The tank fed a small trough with a ramp in the style of all the others. But unlike the others, this one had a float switch. I stuck my bottle under this spigot and turned the switch on, but unfortunately very nasty brown water came out. So I decided to try my water bottle trekking pole apparatus to dip into the big tank.
This is a suggested contraption conceived of by other DWTH hikers, allowing the hiker to reach down into water sources that are otherwise inaccessible. It’s basically a Gatorade bottle strapped to the end of a trekking pole. Mine worked like a charm, netting me super clear, good tasting water. I was feeling spoiled today. Between all the water sources and the cool temperatures, I could have gotten away with barely carrying any water at all. But I still carried several liters, just because I’m always paranoid about the next source being bad.
The afternoon brought more tedious wash walking, but was pretty straightforward. The passes were small and I found plenty of good game trails to follow. It started raining exactly around the time predicted, 2 pm, but it was an extremely mild rain, even enjoyable. I made it out of the wilderness and back to a road, just in time to fill up for the night with more water from a solar tank. It too had a float valve that was spewing clear water. I only grabbed 2 liters, as I still had 2 in my pack. I walked another couple miles towards the northern Big Horn hills and found the perfect campsite under an ironwood tree. I could have hiked a few miles further but this spot looked perfect for the night. I wanted to get settled before the rain started again.
I thought it would be fun to highlight a section of the route description and turn-by-turn plays from this day, just so readers have an idea just how much I have to stay on my toes. This is actually text I copied from Buck30’s blog:
corral and trough
JR / RD>wash
JL
JR / wash>RD
JL
RD>wash
JR / wash>RD
JL / RD>wash
wash>XC
XC>wash
wash>XC
The “>” is notating a change from one type of walking to another and the JL/JR is
turn right or left. This was just 5 miles!